


The Tiniest Can Cause the Biggest Trouble - Nano-Dragons Come to Berk

by Marijane_Akuma



Series: Partly Dragon AU [3]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: But not that much, Dragonese, Dragons, Fever, Friendship, Fun, Gen, Halfa Hiccup, I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I laughed, Losing Control, Madness, Pain, Problems, Self-Doubt, Sickness, Transformation, Trouble, Violence, a lot horror!, because, body-horror, but not really, i cried, just kidding, partly dragon, potato, raging, so often, tags are still hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 38,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4713143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marijane_Akuma/pseuds/Marijane_Akuma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title says it all. <br/>The Nano-Dragons from the books come to Berk and stir up more trouble than you would think was possible. And to add to it, a council is held on Berk, which means many foreign people that aren´t used to friendly dragons at all. And Hiccup is thrown into the unlucky mix of these three as they collide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foggy weather

**Author's Note:**

> This is it. The second of three. I´m so hyped to write the third already, but I have to finish some last scenes on this one first and school will be a big slow-down. BUT GODSAMIECXITED!!!!
> 
> trigger warning: sickness (fever), lost control and self-doubt. It´s not all the story is about, but I don´t want anyone to get a panic-attack while reading, this is written for enjoyment and excitement after all.  
> Also, while there is the warning of "Graphic Depictions of Violence" it is not directly violence, but uhm... let´s say a busted-up body.

_Fear clings at your skin, panic creeps through your bones and sadness poisons your blood-_

_that´s the curse of mine._

 

The events of last summer, when Hiccup found his destiny, were of course still in his memory, carved into his bones and burnt into his brain. His ears would never forget this most horrible sound of breaking bones.   
But right now it was summer again and together with the other dragons he couldn´t resist to just lay lazily on the warmed stones and let the sun shine down on his scales. Before, Hiccup never understood how reptiles could lay in one place for so long just for letting the sun shine down on them, but now he understood. It wasn´t like the constant warmth that came from within his ribcage, it was as if the warm rays would caress him feather-softly all at once but not touch at the same time and a peaceful but prickling feeling spread underneath the uncountable scales.

Suddenly he was wet and cold.

Startled, he shot up and looked around, but then laid his slit-pupil-ed eyes on the twins. They each had a now empty bucket in their hands. He deadpanned as they grinned, let the buckets fall and run as if for their dear lives. With a sigh, he cautiously got out of the group of dozing dragons before he shook the water off of him. Only when he was dry again he let the scales disappear nearly absentmindedly. It was really handy that the scales were somewhat water-resistant.

His powers were under perfect control now, no pain, no sudden surprises or slips with sneezes. He didn´t break things anymore and used his power for good. For example lifting up fallen over things, bending swords back into shape if they were only slightly… well, _bent_ or just touching something extremely hot. His “dragon-therapy” was booming as well. Just like now, there was someone, who needed someone who understood what the dragon said. That was also the cause he had been woken up.

“So? What´s the problem?” the woman bit her bottom lip and wanted to lay a hand on her Deadly Nadder´s cheek, but it jerked away and hissed slightly. “He refuses to let me touch him, just like now. But with everyone else it´s okay. It started a few days ago, but I´m not doing do anything unusual or differently.” The woman explained. Hiccup shot her a look every few words, but his main focus was on the dragon. He knew the dragons understood what they said up to some degree, but not anything. “So? What´s wrong?” he asked the proud and slightly lofty dragon while scratching its snout. But before the dragon could do anything a highly disgusting and burning smell hit Hiccup´s nose and he tumbled a few steps back after his hands shot up to cover his pained organ. He remembered this smell, but he guessed he would never get used to it again. “Have you touched or eaten eel lately?” he asked, still shielding his nose. “Yes, I needed to get rid of old ones that slipped into our basement at high tide a few days ago. Why?” she looked highly confused. Solving this problem wouldn´t be so hard. “It´s the smell. You see, dragons get very sick when they eat eel and thus can´t stand them, they wouldn´t even touch it by free will. You have that smell still on you, that´s why he refuses to get touched. Just… bathe and scrub your hands – a lot. That should solve it.” He explained, she thanked and went off.

The still lingering numb feeling in his nose from the eel smell wasn´t his only problem for that day. Summer on Berk (the short time it actually lasted somewhere between nine months of snow and three of hail) was hot, very hot this year and thus there was an announcement of an if-possible-no-burning-things-rule in favor of not burning down the whole island, which was now very dry and very burn-able. Lucky thing, thick and most of all dark clouds built up above their little but not tiny island and soon enough thick droplets of water fell onto their dry land.

The next days were horrible – for the humans. The rain ended the “fire-weather”, yes, but it also caused horribly thick and most of all muggy air. The fog was thick enough to actually _feel_ it when walking outside. Their clothes never actually dried, they only changed from cold and wet to warm and wet, when they were long enough around a rattling fire. Breathing was a pain. So was getting their hair under control, because, even if Viking-hair never was actually neat, even that had a limit. The water in the air made it even more curly, puffy and heavy. This time, the girls and women were really grateful for not having a beard and constantly taming their hair with braids. The men on the other hand hated it even more, seeing as most of them had big and or long beards they would never cut– the beard of a Viking was his pride, after all. Touching, or even _damaging_ the beard of another Viking was as fatal as a state crime. You even got into jail if you dared it to cut it off without permission. But then again, you also got into jail for just the intend of being treacherous. A prideful folk they were, these Vikings.

These same days were wonderful, though, only for the dragons. They wore no clothes which could get wet and sticky, they had no hair that could get curly and no simple human lungs that couldn´t handle the wetness. The heat in their ribcages (and their snouts anyway) dried the air to its usual dryness, causing the dragons to not even notice any difference in it. But what was different was that there wasn´t any little prickling and itching feeling from dry scales left on said. The constant wetness was somewhat relieving and thus the dragons were pretty pleased with the weather.

Hiccup stood between these two sides and even though he felt a twinge of guilt, he preferred to walk around with his scales out, escaping the disgusting feeling of wet clothes sticking to his skin and the general wetness. He guessed the other never were _that_ envious of his power. The constantly annoyed look of Snotlout was just the proof. Or it was because he just didn´t get the dragon words right and they nearly always ended in insults, causing his dragon to try to either bite or burn him. Not badly, of course, but still.   
Ah yes, another thing to mention. Hiccup translated between the two species if needed, but to prepare for whatever reason may cause him to be unable to do so, he decided it would be good to teach the others the dragon language (next to the usual dragon training), seeing as dragons couldn´t produce other sounds than their original ones – hell, they didn´t even have actual lips to use, so it would be impossible anyways. But despite all their trouble and trying, it seemed to be really hard to nearly impossible for the others to form the sounds right, but they would understand better what was said (or rather purred, hissed, growled – you get it) with each teaching-period. Especially Fishlegs, who was eager to learn anything new anyways, made big progress… well, after him came Astrid, then the idiots, so it wasn´t that surprising that he would stand out amongst them. He wasn´t bad, but… not exactly _good_ either – like a big fish in a little pond.

Other than that, the days went on normally, until

_they_

 came, that is. They came over night and their number was big enough to count as uncountable. Little, yes really tiny dragons, not bigger than a grasshopper and they were everywhere that counted as outside. On the plants, the houses, the ground - even in the arena. They were called Nano-Dragons, they even had a little entry in the Book of Dragons, but nothing specific, just that there once was a dragon seen as little as a single finger, but never again.

Well, until then. 


	2. That´s Where Trouble Starts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Look upwards. That´s what happens.

As the most of you probably already predicted, Fishlegs and Hiccup were eager to learn all about them, but it only lasted for a day or two. Those tiny beings soon turned from little and exciting wonders into one big pest. Even more so after they classified the different types and found their weaknesses and strong points. They weren´t that deep.

Most of their tricks were discovered by experiencing them. There were some amongst them, that, if you touched them anywhere else than at their tail, which was entirely made of keratin, they shocked you like a thunderbolt would; others would cause terrible itching and others would make you sneeze and hiccup at the same time all day. Poor Silent Sven.

At the fourth day, even Stoick the Vast couldn´t stand them anymore and decided they had to go, seeing as the fog and the wetness wouldn´t disappear for a while (and the dragons were only there because of it). The teenagers happily agreed, even the twins because they were shocked often enough by that one Nano that it wasn´t funny anymore, not even for them. The dragons as well felt uneasy around them, because, even though they were all dragons as well, the Nano-Dragons were like insects for the bigger ones and there were just _too_ _many_ to get anything near comfortable. 

Hiccup tried to talk with them – because the dragons were too prideful to talk with insects. But they either wouldn´t even listen, insult him or tell him to mind his own business. He never thought something so tiny could have such a big ego. A few even had the opinion they were the center of the universe… whatever a universe was.  
When Hiccup returned mostly annoyed and slightly depressed, the other dragons forced him into their circle to synchronize, because it was around lunch time (no one ate lunch outside anymore) and they didn´t do it for a few days now.

The air, with all the fog in it, vibrated even more and the sounds mixed more, they sounded eerie and slightly muffled, but it only lasted short anyways. For two reasons:

First: all the Nano-Dragons tried to enter the synchronization and this was not just heavily annoying, but also kind of painful because they didn´t get it right and thus interrupted the harmony with their horrible off-chord screeches.

Second: the dragons said they only waited for their humans to tell them to burn the Nanos, because that was what they usually did with them in such a mass: burn as many as possible until the rest left from alone.  
At first, the teens thought it was a harsh method, but after some considering, they agreed.

It didn´t take long for a plan to form: they would part in two groups. The twins and Snotlout would fly around the beach and the more rock-populated parts of the island, so that they wouldn´t burn it down entirely – seeing as how reckless they were with fire it was probably a good decision. Astrid, Fishlegs and Hiccup would deck the rest, meaning the forests, the village and the fields. The groups would join on the plaza to report when they shooed them all off.

It went pretty good - it wasn´t like the Nano´s could resist though. “They´re many but they´re still weak, huh?” Astrid shouted over the noise the dragons made. The screeching was horrible. “But they´re really loud! Meatlug seems to be getting a headache from it!” Fishlegs shouted back and patted the horny warty head lovingly. “Can´t quite blame her…” Hiccup joined their formation and, with a sigh, transformed back fully to his human form – first, to deaf the sound a bit and secondly – to not be forced to understand all the curses and whines the dragons spit, barked, sneered, hissed, growled and shouted at them. Man, for this little size they sure knew some harsh insults not even a Viking would say in his worst moments. Also they had the strange habit to insult their mothers in the most creative ways, whatever it was with that. But their own dragons seemed oddly cautious, as if they would search a threat, but maybe it was because of the mass.

As far as the dragons were concerned, the brown, green, black, red and many other colors dyed mass was unimportant, except one color. They searched for a bright yellow, but when they found it, everything went wrong.

Hiccup was alarmed by the sudden screams of Astrid and Fishlegs. When he checked what was wrong, he saw them both nearly falling off of their saddles, because their dragons turned around so abruptly and seemingly surprising too – so they did it on their own? Toothless began to struggle as well, trying to stop in full flight, which ended in him frantically and chaotically flapping his wings and getting nothing more than a slight decrease of speed. Suddenly, there was bright light in front of Hiccup, as both, the Nadder AND Gronckle, spit fire into his direction – wait, was there a yellow Nan-

Hiccup wasn´t able to even finish his thought. The rock of the Gronckle collided with the fire of the Nadder and as the shots crashed, they destroyed each other and missed their shared target. A really little Nano-dragon, clad in bright yellow scales, the one kind they hoped they wouldn´t have to encounter in the mass. And they panicked as it flew directly into the direction of their human-leader. Unfortunately, a piece of the Gronckle´s shot parted from the rest widely and hit Hiccup´s head, which nocked him out cold instantly. But back to the yellow Nano. The impact caused a wave of air-pressure, catapulting him forward and directly to the little bit of bare chest that his target had. The harsh crash was too much for his fragile body and he was smashed, but not without his spiky tail boring into the human-flesh, unnoticed, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy so far!
> 
> Also - I´m not a native English-speaker, so please report any errors if you find them!
> 
> A comment would be nice^^


	3. Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> filler chapter.

Toothless, now without Hiccup to maneuver him, struggled a few moments still high up, before he started to fall. Panicked weak roars escaped his throat as he faced the faster and faster nearing ground. Astrid was the first to react and Stormfly was fast enough to catch up, seeing as how she went on full speed and Toothless still tried to stop. She had enough time to reach out and pull the trigger of the automatic fin Hiccup built in so that Toothless could fly without him. Stormfly stopped on her own account, her instincts kicking in as the ground was too near for her taste and Astrid cursed, not sure if she pulled the trigger far enough. Unfortunately, she hadn´t and Toothless still tried to stable. With one lucky flap of his wing, he thrust the machinery into the right position, it clicked together and mere inches above the ground he got a grip and flew straight. Far above them, Astrid sighed delighted, while Fishlegs cheered happily.   
Still, they also flew down to where Toothless landed and watched, as he gently let his rider slide off his back and onto his wing, followed by letting him to the ground. The two other dragons whined concerned, while Toothless nudged the head, only to see it loll to the side limply. Suddenly, blood started to ooze out and stain the grassy ground. The teens as well as the dragons began to panic, but they froze when Hiccup groaned. First, he only made a face, but then shot up and pressed his hand to his head, which had apparently stopped bleeding already. Oh yeah, right, super-healing-powers. They still weren´t fully used to it.   
“Ohhww… that _hurts_.” he groaned before he spotted the blood. “What happened? Must´ve been one pretty hard impact to draw this much blood… my head spins too.” he whined while robbing his already healing but still hurting head. And then, he sneezed. And nearly burnt Astrid to a crisp, if she wouldn´t have been fast enough to react and jump out of the fire-line (pun very much intended). Startled, but mostly surprised, the five beings around him stared at Hiccup – he himself seemed rather disbelieving. “I thought you had that under control!” Astrid stated indignant. Confused, the still sitting one blinked a few times. Everything had turned fuzzy for a brief moment. “I – I had! No wait, I still have I – I just… I don´t know?” Fishlegs stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Now, Astrid, I think it´s obvious what caused this little slip-up.” She crossed her arms and lifted one brow expectantly while standing in her hip. “Hiccup got hit at the head, thus, his control might be a little bit, well, out of control. Like when we stumble because we feel dizzy.” Hiccup frowned. “Sounds plausible.” Hiccup commented and slowly got up, but would´ve fallen backwards if not for Toothless catching and supporting him. “Whoa- thanks bud.” He patted the black head and stood on his own.

This certain day was a Saturday.

Sunday was spent with resting mostly, since Hiccup still felt dizzy as soon as he tried to stand up. And then it began.


	4. A Life-changing Announcement...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...they just don´t know it yet.  
>  Also Hiccup experiences some unusual feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind here, yes, I red the books, that´s how I came up with this idea - but I HAD to change a few things for the plot. THE PLOT MADE ME!

There was still unusual much fog clouding the island, but the mood of the teenagers was clouded by something else. One especially grumpy, red-headed scaly half-dragon dragged himself through the village. The inside of his head felt uncomfortably light and dizzy, as if it would spin in constant circles and his limbs didn´t quite want to move. He still gave his advices when villagers asked, though, remarkable less friendly and impatient.   
Problem was - he had to sneeze. A lot. Like, really often, which in the end caused the biggest part of his grumpiness. The sneezing as it was wouldn´t be such a big deal – if he wouldn´t sneeze fire every. _Damn_. **_Time_**! Really, it was annoying, also did his throat hurt from it, along with his mouth, which was permanently switching between hurting (because he didn´t transform beforehand and thus it was burnt) and itching from the rapid healing.   
But that wasn´t even the worst part. As the week went by, he became more unfriendly and grumpier, snarkier and his temper shortened with each day.   
When his friends asked what was going on, he refused to let them get to him, changed the subject or, like Friday, made a harsh remark and left by stomping off. He wasn´t in the mood to talk to them, or anyone at all for that matter, he wasn´t feeling like eating, sleeping, flying or just breathing – he wasn´t even in the mood for synchronizing which was highly unlikely, since he loved it so much. Well, he still did the synchronization, but he didn´t seem happy or relaxed at all.   
After the situation didn´t get better, they just assumed he had caught a cold, seeing as he continued to sneeze and even though he wouldn´t agree, they knew he had a slight fever. But Vikings didn´t get sick, even if, they still fought, it was their right and tradition and because Hiccup was as thick-skulled and stubborn as all the grown-ups, they let him be. He would lay down if needed.   


The only one who seemed to be worried was Gothi. The stars were silent, the guts didn´t show anything and actually Hiccup should be healthy with his dragon-regeneration-ability. She knew a fever was similar to a wound, so it should just heal – but it didn´t.

As the second week started and he still didn´t get better, even the careless Vikings like the twins started to worry – why was he still sick? It also wasn´t like he infected someone else or the like, which made especially Fishlegs highly curious. So he approached Hiccup at the second day of the second week.

“Hey Hiccup!” he waved and Hiccup stopped dead in his tracks, waiting for Fishlegs to come over, but he already glared at him, though, not very threatening – he wore that glare for the past week constantly anyway. “How is your uh sickness doing? Any better?”, “No.” Hiccup hissed back and crossed his arms in annoyance.

It wasn´t like he ignored his body-condition. His throat was a dry mess, his head felt dizzy and he didn´t have appetite at all, making even eating a pain. Also he was annoyed by every living being that dared to approach him, annoyed by the humans, the dragons, even plants and most of all his not properly working body!

“Well… I-I found a special plant in my book that might help, though, it´s usually used fo-“, Hiccup groaned and looked up at the sky as if cursing the gods. Fishlegs was, like, the fifth villager approaching him with some suspicious medicine. “Lemme alone, it´s just a cold.” He commanded and rushed off. He headed into the woods where no one would annoy him. Fishlegs stared at his back dumbfounded. That just now was the first time he saw Hiccup that upset, annoyed and grumpy, but even more so it was the first time he hissed at him that angry. He never witnessed Hiccup to be so… so mean. “I just wanted to help…?” he mumbled, though, not even Hiccup could hear him anymore.

Annoyed the reddish-brown haired half-human kicked a tree that stood in his way, too annoyed to avoid it. He didn´t really do it on purpose, it was just to let some steam off, but his surprise ripped him back into reality, as the tree sunk and in the end fell to the ground with a heavy >thump<. He stood there and stared at it surprised and slightly shocked – he didn´t know he could kick-over trees.

 _TREES_.                             

Well, okay, on the other hand, he once broke a table by simply letting his head fall onto it in a frustrated gesture. So kicking-over trees wasn´t that unbelievable. Or, in the range of possibilities, because he may have grown and built up a bit, but he was still slender, to say the least.   
With a deep sigh he sat down on the now lying tree and put his head in his hands. He didn´t know what was going on anymore and it frustrated him. He didn´t want to be mean to everyone, he wanted to live his normal life, but the other way around his life didn´t want him to it seemed. He felt bad for shouting at Fishlegs and decided to apologize later when he got back.

Hiccup sat on the fallen tree for hours without moving at all while being deep in thought. At some point, he straightened up, crossed his legs like a tailor would do and closed his eyes. Instantly, his hearing improved and he did what he would call one-man-synchronization, or, as he heard from trader Johann, mediating. Some wise men in the old tribes in the south did this to find their middle or peace or their core or something. It was pretty relaxing he found. Deep and slow breaths filled his widened lungs with the fresh air of the forest and his nose painted pictures of the surroundings he smelled in his head. He listened to the few birds singing, the cracks of bigger animals, the tiny footsteps of ants and the occasional dragon-roar.   
After another few hours, he found himself to have calmed down enough, let his wings (and only those) come out, stretched them and took off. When he reached the village, he hovered above the houses and looked around for the blond mop of hair he searched – and found. Swiftly he dove down and startled a deeply thinking Fishlegs by landing in front of him. While Fishlegs scanned him, Hiccup awkwardly cleared his throat and folded his wings. He knew that, even if they didn´t say it, his wings were intimidating for the villagers if they were stretched out and he stood in front of them. Thus, he tried to avoid making them uncomfortable by folding them neatly against his back – well, as far as possible that is. “Uhm, so, I wanted to apologize for shouting at you earlier. I didn´t mean it.” He said lowly and glanced at Fishlegs. Said blinked irritated but smiled. “No problem. But the chief asked where you are a minute ago, I think you should see him.” Fishlegs informed him and Hiccup looked around. “Where is he?”, “In the great hall.” Hiccup nodded and took off, not too fast, he didn´t want Fishlegs to fall over from the wind he knew his wings made.

He felt slightly proud of his skill, when he landed in front of the great hall and swiftly started walking in the same movement. As he entered through the huge door, his wings were already back inside him – or where-ever they went, he didn´t really know.   
As per usual, his father was easy to find in the crowd with his big red beard. Hiccup faintly remembered making the braids in it, though, he never really appreciated that his dad still kept them up until now. The other Vikings only had small braids if not just one, but his dad still kept the multiple and big braids that tamed his beard at least a bit. His dad told him once his mother made some of them as well, which pleased him, because it meant he really was like his mother, at least a bit. That was, because he did sometimes wonder if his dad told him he would be like his mother to avoid saying he wasn´t a man, a Viking like his dad, like he should be, but now he knew he meant what he said.   
But back to Stoick. He stood on the round fireplace that was used for bigger discussions, next to him Gobber and along with them more older and experienced Vikings. His Brother, Snotlout´s father, flanked his other side. “You wanted to see me?” asked Hiccup curious. What might be going on? They wore rather serious expressions. His dad even hesitated. “Heccup, starting next week, the chiefs of the other tribes, each along with some of their people, will arrive at Berk and we will hold a council. It´s just routine, but it will be the first time since we made peace with the dragons.” Hiccup nodded, an idea of what his father was about to say formed in his head already. “I want you to make sure the dragons behave, since the other tribes are still pretty skeptical if they can really be trusted. Also…” he hesitated again and Hiccup raised his brows. >>also? What also?<< he wondered, but Gobber took over and finished Stoicks sentence. “Would be really helpful to not show off yer powers too much, the others dislike the idea of such a powerful being as ya´re now.” Hiccup frowned even more. “So… the other tribes think I´m dangerous?” he couldn´t avoid his brows from drawing together. Stoick seemed to be at a loss of words as his son looked up to him with an expression that demanded answers. How do you tell your own son he was a threat in the eyes of others? Of others that were powerful enough to harm him? To take him away? Gobber nudged his best friend and chief. “Well… yeah. You have to understand, it´s not like they ever saw someone like you. They´re… afraid we could start a war.” He tried, but Hiccups thoughts run wild at that. >>someone like me huh? A monster, just say it, you mean it anyway, don´t you? They see me as a monster, you fear of me being a monster… but… just because I´m strange and different doesn´t make me a monstrous danger!<< “I see.” He answered lowly, again annoyed. Not even wondering where those unusual thoughts came from. He then turned halfway, but stopped for a moment. “I will tell the dragons to keep it down when the other chiefs arrive, I´m sure they will understand… or at least behave.”

So he said. And he DID tell the dragons at the synchronization later that day. And they DID understand – but they seemed to be worried. He didn´t get out of them what it was though. As it was interrupted by another sneeze they seemed to be even more concerned, but didn´t try to mention it. Hiccup thought it was just a dragon thing and they didn´t want to get sick or something like that.


	5. Cloth, Crown And Jewerly

Though, he didn´t even care two days later as he was constantly annoyed, angry and confused. His glare worsened and he also didn´t try to mediate, because he just couldn´t find any calmness in him at all.   
At the very last day of the week, he snapped and yelled at Astrid in his anger, even though she was just starting to say something. “Just fuck off!” he shouted and let his wings come out before he took off roughly but also in one swift movement which clashed oddly against each other every time. The wind he caused with his actions not only threw her to the ground, where she coughed from the cloud of dust and dirt she landed in, but also let villagers stumble that were near enough.   
The most frustrating thing was that he didn´t even know WHY he was so… pissed off. By everything!

He spent his time flying at top speed around the island to exhaust himself and let some steam off, he even molt and crashed some rocks, still frustrated by his strange body, his unwanted acting and the unanswered question WHY he was acting and feeling that way. Why was his body feeling horrible? Why was couldn´t he control his actions and words? WHY WAS HE SO MAD ALL THE TIME?!

…

Why couldn´t he prove that he _wasn´t…_ just a dangerous monster…?

…

Sighting, he sat on one of the demolished stones and stared at the open sea. Now he was calm and somewhat collected. He felt bad for shouting at Astrid for no reason. “What did she want anyways…?”

 

Astrid was more than surprised while she collected herself from the ground. Hiccup nearly never cursed, especially not with her around or so she has heard. But for him not letting her even begin her sentence was more than strange and increased her worries. She and the other teens tried to get something out of the dragons when Hiccup wasn´t around, but they didn´t get very far, seeing as the dragons still used >words< (Hiccup would scold her for that expression) they still didn´t know and what they understood was only “sick” and “with” and “dragon” and that only barely.   
“Sick with dragon… what the hell does THAT mean?” Snotlout asked while making wild gestures. “Wait – so there´s a sickness called _dragon_? I thought those are those big scaly things!” Tuffnut exclaimed, but Astrid send him a deadpan stare. “Those ARE dragons.”, “Humans turned dragon by the dragon-sickness?” Ruffnut asked and the others weren´t sure if she was kidding or not. “No… there is no such thing as a disease called dragon.” Fishlegs said slowly. “BUT why can Hiccup turn into a dragon and is sick with dragon hm? Case clear, there´s a sickness turning humans to dragons.” The twins nodded determined to each other and crossed their arms. They really believed that. So the others just ignored them. “What if… the dragon part is causing his behavior?” Fishlegs asked quietly after a while of silent thinking. “What? How come?”

Fishlegs cleared his throat and seemed to be more confident. “Due to the thick fog, Hiccup wore his scales more than usually, resulting in him being most of the time more dragon than human, he also spent a lot of time with the other dragons, I mean, more than usual. Remember what Toothless told us about Berserker-Island? Hiccup transformed fully and went on a rampage, thus we could conclude that his dragon part is rather aggressive. If you follow this line of thought, it´s not that surprising, that, if he lets his body be more dragon, it will affect his human personality.” They needed some seconds to comprehend all Fishlegs said just now. “So you´re saying his dragon half causes his madness because he had his scales out too much?” Snotlout asked disbelieving. Fishlegs seemed pretty unsettled by his tone. “Would make sense, though, his eyes changed the first time when he was angry…” he shrugged as if it was nothing, but again, he said something extremely important. “What? When?” Astrid asked excited and slightly angry, but nevertheless made a step forward as this information was a possible clue. Snotlout frowned, wasn´t it obvious? “When Gobber told us about his fate and all that.” He shrugged, not understanding what the big deal was about it. “When he scared you off?” Tuffnut asked cackling. Snotlout gaped at him for a second, before he crossed his arms. “He didn´t scare me off.” He said, but obviously he lied. “I just chose to leave. You hear: _chose_.”, “Uh – yeah? Because you were scared, you hear: _scared_.” Ruffnut taunted back and her brother skipped in on the last word. They run away cackling as Snotlout chased them and swore-shouted to give them the beating of their lives.   
Thus Astrid and Fishlegs were left to think of a solution. At the back of his mind, Fishlegs noticed that their dragons seemed to listen to their conversation, but he didn´t mind and thus ignored it.

What he didn´t know, though, was, that the dragons, if not all of it, understood pretty much which way the conversation of their humans took and also that it was wrong. They didn´t understand. He wasn´t sick with “dragon”, he had dragon-killing-fever. They named it like that, it was also known as “the yellow curse” or “the curse of death”. In fact, the same thing was clothed in many names, wore many titles as its crown and countless deaths as its jewelry. They just knew this kind of sneezing, the short temper and bad attitude. Dragons that were behaving like that… their flames burst suddenly high, bright and overwhelmingly powerful – they drained its source until it´s gone.   
But their humans would fix it, they knew that their young leader was sick, they knew many things about dragons not even dragons knew, maybe they knew a cure – a cure no dragon found before.

Before the sun was as its highest point, Astrid and Fishlegs came to the conclusion that Hiccup´s dragon part was causing his behavior and they should simply force him to stay in one place long enough to listen to them, so they could tell him that they suspected he had to walk around as a human entirely a few days, so that his madness would go away.

 

Hiccup sighed. He had stared at the ocean for hours and actually calmed down. He also didn´t have to sneeze anymore and the only thing bothering him was that his head started to feel a little bit dizzy again, though it didn´t do so the last days. When he heard little wings flap lazily behind him, he turned around to see a Terrible Terror making its hesitant way to him. It landed on his shoulders and crawled over them, before he settled in a comfortable position. Hiccup actually chuckled and it felt good, he didn´t do it in a while… The little dragon asked him quietly and lazily if he wouldn´t want to synchronize with them today and he frowned. When he looked up at the sun, he assumed it was indeed already time for lunch and thus stood up. While he stretched his wings, the Terror dug his claws into the fabric of his clothing. Hiccup was careful to not fly too fast so that the little dragon on his shoulders wouldn´t be swept away. As he hovered over the village for a moment (because he loved it to fly, it was such a… just great feeling, the wind in his hair, under his wings, filling them to their fullest, but at the same time it was soft and refreshing) he already saw the circle of dragons and the group of teenagers next to it. He ignored their stares for once and just landed in between his half-sisters and –brothers. This time, he didn´t feel like letting his wings disappear and thus just folded them neatly and let them go limp enough to lay on the ground in a somewhat half-circle around him. The dragons around him watched him with a mixture of happiness, worry and comfort, which he was really thankful for. Because they understood, they understood without talking or demanding answers. He felt enough at peace to even close his eyes before he let the first tone slowly rumble its way through his throat. The others joined at first still hesitantly, only with low rumbles and purring, but they soon got louder and more confident. The sounds became deeper and higher at the same time, it became more complex with each dragon that joined and when they reached absolute harmony, Hiccup entered the part of the synchronizing when he understood what the dragons were saying. Or at least what they meant, because there weren´t exactly _words_ in the language of dragons. There were only means, raw feelings and expressions, which was why the other humans had such a hard time understanding Dragonese, as every human language had only words representing a meaning or things. A normal human would just have to memorize the countless combinations of the language to truly understand it and still one wouldn´t understand it as Hiccup did. He felt the feelings mix with his own, now he drowned in worry and was choked by concern, but also caressed by comfort and love made him all fuzzy inside. The thoughts were imbedded in his head as if they were his own, it was as if they were each painting pictures he couldn´t see, just feel. The familiar prickling under his skin announced his scales coming out as they slowly, but not painfully anymore, dug from beneath it through his skin.  
He loved it, the feelings swarming him, the heat in his chest, his scales protecting him like the thickest armor couldn´t and the sounds that made the air around him vibrate in a way that made him feel at home. Though… his peace was robbed from him as he heard the news the dragons had. Surprisingly they all had to share the same thing with him. They explained that the humans were worried about him, and they thought his dragon part would cause his behavior. New feelings were mixing in; annoyance for the humans not understanding them, anger for them not doing something until now and from some dragons white hot fury that some assumed all dragons had been humans, which made them angry as they were very prideful to be dragons and thought they stood equally if not higher than humans – these very humans assuming they would be just sick humans and not an equally good race angered, hurt and offended them to a point of feeling highly insulted as well. Hiccups pushed down own fury and madness feasted on these dark feelings, making it grow and break out again, worse than ever. He didn´t even hear the dragons explain that the humans may have found a cure, only that they wanted to cage him or something, which was the last drop to bring the barrel to overflowing. He snapped entirely and no one was fast enough to react. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, hope you like it so far - and please, PLEASE, report errors if you find any.  
> Also, a comment of what you think would be so nice^^


	6. Lost It Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, let´s watch chaos unfold...

The humans were alerted when the dragon sounds nearby stopped abruptly, even more so when terrified screeches and panicked roars broke out and the dragons fled from their earlier positions in their tight circle. The teenagers couldn´t really see what was going on, as the dragons hindered themselves to get away in their panic. The next thing catching their attention was a bright burst of fire that shot up in a line into the sky, not only gleaming in all shades of red, orange and yellow, but also let sparks fly everywhere and set various things on fire.

The last thing the dragons got through the link was an overwhelming, terrifying strength, powered by bottomless fury that burned into their bodies with rage never before seen. The last thing they saw before they fled, was their leader in his dragon form, though, he was different. The scales were darker and he grew more than a head in height, his wings, drawing blood from their point of attachment to his body, spread further than they ever saw as they reached a whole new level of size and power. The air around him was prickling hot, too hot even, as the fire in his chest was burning hotter than lava. They saw his eyes lose their shine as he lost his mind with it and his bared fangs drip with dark poisoned saliva as he directed said at them as if they were fiends. The fire, their own element, coming from his throat scared them, as it was painfully hot.   
The fact scaring them most, though, was that he lost his human smell entirely, which never happened before. He always wore both scents, even when fully transformed (or what they thought was fully transformed) and it was a pleasant scent, but now… there was only the smell of danger making their noses prickle un- comfortingly which made them feel like prey. It was like back then when they were under the control of the queen, but now it was even worse. They tried to search shelter as long as they could, never wanting to feel so helpless again as they did back then.

One dragon, though, as unique as he already was, stood firm in place, but his stance was treacherous. It showed his fear, but he knew. He knew and thus he stayed. He had to, because he knew what was happening. He knew his human, or rather his mind, wasn´t awake in this body anymore at all, he knew which danger that meant. The last time he did things his human could never do, he loved all creatures too much to do those things, but now, with this state of transformation the black dragon knew his human was dangerous, completely out of control and NOT. HIM. SELF.

The humans tried to see what was going on from where the dragons fled as they tried to calm their own down; they had barely been able to stop them from running around out of control. Most of them and the villagers caught a glimpse of what was happening. Toothless stood, nearly crouching on the ground and with a lowered head, in front of a much bigger dragon-Hiccup whose wings were spread in what they knew was a threatening manner dragons used when confronting each other in an attempt to appear bigger to show their superiority. But before they can even wonder what was happening and why Hiccup was suddenly so big, he ripped open his mouth which slightly resembled a snout now and hell broke out.   
A deafening roar, even louder than the one heard on Berserker-island, pierced their ears with its bloodcurdling sound that let everything shake, as the humans and animals lived through the horrific experience of feeling every single bone in their body vibrate. The dragons that were too near fell to the ground and tried to cover their ears as they cringed and squirmed, the humans tried to block it out with their hands and bent forward, but their ears still ringed and a high-pitched piping echoed in their skulls. The dragons that were about to calm down because of their riders dashed forward as fast as they could, ignoring their beloved humans as they fell to the ground. After all, they were animals and they still heard their instincts, which now screamed at them to run for dear life from that deadly and furious force that threatened their lives to a beyond knowledge high extinct.

Toothless ears pressed against his skull, but it didn´t matter at all when he was actually thrown back from the roar.

The second the roaring ended and the humans were able to look at Hiccup again, was the only second he left them to do so, as he spread his wings even more and even wider than they thought he could. His back bent through while his head fell back and he roared again, making even the most stubborn and sturdy amongst them cringe and cry out in pain, as it was even _louder_ than the one before. When it stopped and they searched him with their gazes again (because that was all they could do with their by fear paralyzed bodies) they saw him way too high for the short amount of time he had to get up there. Then, a wave of dust, sand and dirt, that was swirled up by his powerful start, rolled over them and made the one that accidently breathed in cough heavily. Astrid was among the few that held their breath soon enough and she closed her eyes to not be blinded. Thus, she was able to even notice the warmth of the cloud that rolled over her and covered her in a thin layer of dirt and dust. When they looked up again in horror, Hiccup´s portentous form was gliding above the village in a circle, like a sign of death coming upon them or a bad omen. Then suddenly and with an insane speed, he darted down directly to the plaza they stood on. The moment before he would have crashed into the ground, his straight line made a curve and in the few seconds he flew horizontally over the plaza, he set half of it on fire and darted up again. The wind his big wings made knocked everyone off their feet and spread sparks of fire into every direction. Again he drew a circle high enough to be only seen as a big winged creature, a big black spot, before he darted down again and in the next second a whole house burned. He flew up only to dart down again. Again. Again _again_ **_agAIN_**. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please comment!  
> And, as always, PLEASE report any errors! I´m not a native English-speaker.


	7. Lost It Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh Hiccup. (What have I done to you?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was shorter than I remembered. But still fun to write. And I fear the sentence-structure will be horrible. PLEASE tell me if some parts are just grammer-horror, okay?  
> Special thanks to Yukimura 12 for leaving comments after every update bunch! Makes me so happy to read what you think!
> 
>  
> 
> Also, TRIGGER WARNING: body horror

“Astrid!” Stoick shouted as the blonde girl jumped at the last moment through a wall of fire to escape a terrifying death´s grip. “Chief! What are we gonna do?” she shouted back over the ruckus of the hell around them. Not only Hiccup was raging, but also the other dragons which stopped to flee seconds after the first fire was set. It was incredibly hot and as they saw a Terror stumbling into it and jerking back with a screech it appeared to be even harmful for them, but that didn´t stop them from spitting even more and now run around in panic. To add to it, there were screams and cries from children, shouts from adults and the animals screeched as well, trying to escape the hot danger. Stoick was one of few Vikings that remained relatively calm and while scanning the area he wiped the sweat from his forehead, so it wouldn´t get into his eyes. “We have to get him out of the air before the fire spreads through the whole village! Seems like because of the fog everything is wet and it won´t catch fire easily!” he shouted. Suddenly, Astrid saw surprise in his face and before she could even react she was tackled to the ground by the bear of a man. “Wha-?!” she made but was silenced when what she assumed was Hiccup flew ridiculously fast over them, missing them by only a few inches, spreading sparks and covering them in a cloud of hot dusk. Stoick was fast to get back on his feet and simply pulled Astrid along. “You think you can get your dragons?!” he shouted before roughly, but not harming, pushing a Gronckle to the side, preventing them from getting tackled by it. Only by the near shout of Fishlegs he noticed it was Meatlug, because the dusk-fog around them lifted slightly and he could make out both, human and dragon, not even three meters away. Meatlug had landed on Fishlegs, which gripped her tightly as she wanted to escape and was quick to scratch her at her pudding point, making her calm down instantly and return to her senses. “I guess that answers your question!” Astrid shouted. She already tried to scan the area for her own dragon, but all the dusk and fire made it really hard. “You get your dragons and catch Hiccup! Cage or even knock him out if needed, but do something! I will help on the ground! We have to put out the fire and lead the dragons to the arena!” Stoick commanded and immediately started as he run to the first water trunk that wasn´t toppled over, lifted it and put out the fire on a large space of the plaza, which only worked because the flames were little on the stony ground.

Astrid, was quick to find her Nadder. At the same time, she recalled everything she could remember from the training last year. She found the other teenagers shortly after, all of them huddled up in one place. She quickly explained their mission (“Are you kidding me?! You want us to get NEAR him?!” Snotlout shouted back but obeyed as a new wave of fire hit the plaza) and they got to work. They thought to calm the dragons down was the hard part so far, but it was surprisingly easy as soon as they scratched them. Fishlegs proposed to try to tackle Hiccup down as a team, he shouldn´t be able to resist all of them at once and after they agreed they took off. It wasn´t like they had time to argue anyway.

As soon as the four dragons were in the air, the murderous rampage paused, because the four-winged dragon stayed high up. He didn´t make circles, but stared down, as if to weight his chances – but in reality he was just watching out of slight curiosity.

What would those worms come up with?

This got the riders enough time to get up to his height. He remained flying at his position, but looked from one to another dragon in his slightly hunched half stance. The teenagers were scared by his appearance – the lifeless and still so burning and gleaming eyes fixed in a murderous glare; the dark saliva dripping out of the corner of his mouth and the long, razor sharp teeth of his slightly deformed snout-mouth looked like they could rip of whole limbs with ease. Because the teenagers flew in a sloppy circle around him, he couldn´t see all of them, it angered him.   
What the twins saw from behind him was worse than the front. There was still a lot of blood dripping from the deformed back. Tuffnut was sure he saw the white of some bones that stuck out like tiny dorsal spine pieces. But the sickening amount of fresh blood, ripped, halfway scaled skin and open flesh and muscle was enough for them to not inspect it any further.   
As Hookfang accidentally flew a little bit closer, Hiccup made a snarling sound into her direction and she jerked back. He then bared his fangs at them and growled, as if they were fiends, but he didn´t roar or spit fire. Astrid, which was at his front, lifted her hands in a calming gesture, getting his attention. Or more a ~~angry~~ furious glare. Despite her nervousness, she didn´t look away from the frightening, deformed and twisted face with its threatening, empty eyes as she spoke. She tried to use only calming and soothing words, while nudging Stormfly with her knee so that she would get closer to him slowly. Hiccup continued to stare at her and a growl deepened every now and then, but it seemed to work.

Of course it didn´t, though.

From one moment to another his mouth was opened wide and he roared at her. Not only did Stormfly loose her orientation at that, but it made Astrid fall of her. As the other teens departed, the twins were fast enough to catch Astrid. Luckily, because they lifted her out of another ray of fire from above, only coaling the tips of her pony-tail. Hiccup tried to burn Fishlegs as well. The departing and fleeing of the riders quickly turned into a hunt.   
Stormfly flew close to Barf and Belch, so that Astrid was back in her own saddle not long after she fell off. As they dodged another blast of fire, they were parted further. “He´s completely outta control!” Astrid shouted, hoping the others would hear her. “Yeah right?!”, “Isn´t that awesome?! Look at the chaos!” “We should provoke him more!” the twins commented; though being hunted by their very death (probably), they fell back to their usual selves. “No idiots! He´s about to kill us gods damned!” Snotlout shouted from Astrid´s other side, as both, the Nightmare and the Zippleback, got back to their positions on her sides. “Then what should we do?!” Fishlegs shouted from beneath the Nadder – he spoke loud and clearly, but was clearly freaked out. They heard him screech as he dodged another chance to get burned to a crisp and took a turn.   
Okay, good thing: they had trained these routes in case of an emergency - bad thing: _Hiccup_ invented and thought them those very routes.   
On the other side, he blindly followed them and was thrown behind for a moment with each turn and loop they took, as if he didn´t know the routes at all. They heard a frustrated roar, but it wasn´t as loud as the ones before – at least not to them, thanks to the wind whipping into their faces. They usually didn´t fly at top speed for long, but now it was more than necessary. Still, they had to think of a plan, because dragons weren´t long time sprinters. Panic could only fuel your strength for so long. “Kill him first?!” the twins suggested out of one mouth to answer Fishlegs question. They weren´t joking. “No way! This never happened before, there HAS to be a cause! And another way!” Astrid shouted back. She wanted to make another suggestion when Hiccup roared in a different kind of way than he did before. Suddenly, the dragons started to buckle and dive downwards. The teens shrieked, they nearly fell off. They also slowed down and sure enough, Hiccup could catch them now easily. The shrieks quickly turned to horrified screams as the ground got too close too fast, but they were overshadowed by Hiccups mighty roar.

Though… they got to the ground without being killed, but the landing was harsh, for all of them, because the dragons threw them off their backs as if they were eels. The teenagers (except Fishlegs) were fast to get back to their feet, because waiting meant death, as they had learned so long ago.   
Of course they tried to get back to the dragons as they were their only chance to escape alive, but the scaled beings hissed and snarled at them. Fishlegs gasped as he saw the pupils being only small slits – like they used to be when they were still in the war. “Wait! Don´t go near them!” he warned and held his hands up in a calming manner. The others scanned their dragons as well cautious and frightened, but also curious and puzzled – what was going on with them? The dragons stepped back, so that they formed a half-circle, which had an open place in the middle. Slowly Toothless came from behind, determinedly heading for the gap in the formation. Relieve washed over the teens when they recognized him. “Toothless! What´s going o-” Astrid stopped, and her breath hitched in her throat the moment she saw the thin lines in his green eyes. He halted in the gap, but he wasn´t exactly standing in the open place. He growled deeply, as if he would face a long hated fiend, and glared at the humans.

Slowly, the teenagers wanted to back off, but froze in spot when _he_ came down. Slow but powerful flaps of wings sizzled up dusk - even let some wind meet the faces of the frightened teenagers, although they stood at least four meters away. Hiccup´s grown body somewhat stood upright -with a silent glare and crossed arms- as he got further down until he floated a meter above the grassy earth. He fit perfectly into the other dragon´s formation as he stared at them coldly.   
Fishlegs was the first to notice that not only there wasn´t any rage but pure disgust in his expression. However, he could also make out thin pupils in his eyes, which was definitely better than before.

The others didn´t think that optimistically, because if Hiccup actually had his intellect back, he was even more dangerous in their opinion than he was in his wildly raging form. After all, they didn´t even know how deep his intellect was, and if he wouldn´t usually have the killer instinct of a fly, they would´ve feared him all the time; feared what he could think of. But the combination of this terrifying intellect and an overwhelming intend to kill was their worst nightmare.

Just what in the world was going on? Hiccup looked at them as if they were disgusting insects. His gaze burned as if it would inject venom into their veins.   
But, suddenly, out of nowhere, he changed abruptly. He slumped down quite a bit as if his wings wanted to give out and a hand shot up to grip his head as he hissed in pain. His stance turned into a hunched form, letting him appear weaker and less intimidating than before. He scrunched his face in pain and annoyance. At the same time, the dragons that hissed at their humans a second ago now shook their heads and obviously returned to normal, seeing as they cooed and purred lowly while approaching their humans to nudge them affectionately. Before the teenagers could even process the change of events, they saw Hiccup slowly slumping down, more with each flap of his wings, and when he flopped to the ground, both his hands were already at his head and a concerned, normal, Toothless tried to comfort him with coos and wheezing while nudging his human. As Hiccup groaned in pain, Toothless nuzzled him again.  
No one saw how Hiccups pupils widened rapidly while he regained his human and most of all harmless-thinking and reasonable mind. Though he was entirely confused and his thoughts swarmed in his head like panicked birds, he was again as harmless as a new-born kitten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chap is "Fear". Be prepared.  
> Comment please!
> 
> And another thing: I´m always announcing it several times when I update   
> here: http://otaku-marijane.tumblr.com/  
> here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/marijane-akuma (there hardly comes anything else right now, I only post my works there, no reblogs, nothing else)  
> and here: https://twitter.com/MarijaneXD
> 
> aaaaand, if ya wanna have a discussion/have questions/have prompts/anything else, go here: http://marijane-akuma-works.tumblr.com


	8. Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> \- OR "Pictures of A Person"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, I kinda love turtoring my characters. Show what they´re made of, then break them mercylesly mwahahahahaha....
> 
> IMPORTANT: When reading this chapter, you have to keep in mind a few things, otherwise it doesn´t make sense what is written in this chapter: Hiccup had a different childhood in this AU. He spent the most of his youth in his house or in the forge with only Gobber, actually until he was 15. He´s a full in his teens when starting to go out, he had a LOT of time for himself, mostly spent with thinking and, in some cases, reading. Drawing. Inventing and fueling his mind. He developed completely differently on a social level, away from people and not amongst them as the other teens did. It´s the second year that he frequently spends time with people that aren´t Gobber or his Dad. Okay. Now you can read.
> 
>  
> 
> Update-news always here: http://otaku-marijane.tumblr.com/  
> here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/marijane-akuma (there hardly comes anything else right now, I only post my works there, no reblogs, nothing else)  
> and here: https://twitter.com/MarijaneXD
> 
> aaaaand, if ya wanna have a discussion/have questions/have prompts/anything else, go here: http://marijane-akuma-works.tumblr.com

Toothless, feeling the change in his rider and smelling the familiar human-dragon scent, continued to nuzzle his rider, who was already changing back, though it made some unpleasant sounds. The teenagers relaxed completely as they saw how Hiccup slowly caressed Toothless back, his hands were entirely human already. Then, suddenly, he hissed again in pain, gripped his head and bent forward – the others didn´t know he suppressed pained screams. “B-Bud? What´s going on? Wh-why am I – why am I here?” Hiccup asked anxious and confused. His voice quivered heavily with fright and panic, as his body began to shake as well. Toothless was more than puzzled by the sheer terror that radiated from his human´s body. The other teenagers were frozen in spot as Hiccup panicked more and more – they just didn´t know what to do and his state was too shocking, too unreal, so that they had it hard to process it properly. “What´s going on? I-I can´t remember _anything!_ Why am I here? Have – _have I done something? Why can´t I remember?!”_ his voice shook so hard it was a miracle that they still understood him, it was higher than usual. He had begun to pull at his hair while slumping down more and more. A throbbing pain spread through his head and everything became scary and unreal.

 

_Fear clings at your bones…_

_Panic creeps through your veins…_

_And Sadness poisons your blood…_

 

 

“I-I´m loosing my mind, aren´t I?!” he suddenly screamed, voice cracked at the last words. “The world is horrible, I haven´t done anything wrong?!” the teens heard his slightly insane, rippling, cracking and terror exposing shouts, but they didn´t see his eyes slowly watering. He never felt this anxious, this exposed; never did his heart hurt that much as it beaded in his ribcage - not when he stood in front of the first dragon, not when he transformed the first time, not when he feared to never see Toothless again – this time was different. It was, as if some sort of parasite would feast at his intestines, as if his blood was frozen but at the same time boiling and his lungs just wouldn´t feel full, no matter how much air he sucked in through his aching throat.

The dragons, receiving the waves of terror and horror radiating from their human-leader, decided to do something useful –since their people weren´t doing anything. Gently, so not to scare him even more, they approached him, fluttered with their wings and cooed lovingly at him, as they surrounded him to shield him from the rest of the world. They were relieved to feel easier waves radiate from him, as they nuzzled him, nibbled at his ears and fingers, cuddled and purred lowly. After some moments, Hiccup looked up with very dulled and glassy eyes, but the dragons didn´t let their worry show. His eyes seemed so drained, so weak, they weren´t shining as they were used to, _supposed_ to. With heavy tremors shaking them, he laid his calloused and rough but at the same time thin and gentle hands on some scaly snouts to give a scratch or pat, a little stroke. “You guys…” his whisper was barely audible and still cracked, but the dragons understood him perfectly. They felt the gratefulness in his voice as it seeped through their scaly armor and fuzzed their insides. He looked so happy, as if he was about to cry even, but then, without any sign, his eyes rolled back and he passed out before falling limply to the ground. The dragons were shocked, of course, but quickly noticed that he just passed out from exhaustion. While the teenagers wondered what was going on in that circle of dragons, which prevented them from seeing Hiccup, each of them silently tried to process the previous happenings in this little pause they got.

The twins didn´t have it easy. Though they weren´t that bright and usually never serious, they had still seen a body deformed and twisted, which brought back the memory of the previous summer, when Hiccup came back and they saw him transforming for the first time. They weren´t the only ones that had some nightmares caused by these pictures, but now it was brought back and made them stay silent.

Snotlout, he was hard on the outside, but had a soft core, as we all know. He tried to put on a strong and undisturbed face, but it failed and resembled a nervous grimace. Yes, to some extent, he had always been scared of Hiccup´s powers. He mocked him his whole life, addressed him as useless and made countless mean jokes with Hiccup as their target – because he knew his scrawny, overly skinny and just weak and useless cousin couldn´t fight back. Until he changed – suddenly he was powerful, he was even stronger than dragons and of course much stronger than the adults, who had always been the strongest people Snotlout knew. He found it scary to know Hiccup could harm him now. He found it scary to think of what Hiccup could think of to get his revenge for so many years of bullying. He found it scary that the dragons would stand on his side when they would get into a fight. But there was one thing that made him feel slightly at ease and shoved his fears away – Hiccup himself. His nature was the most peaceful and harmless one he knew (he picked on it several times, for it being not-Viking, now it was ironically saving his skin). Hiccup couldn´t harm people, he would sacrifice himself without a second thought and (nearly) always wanted the best for the others. Now that Snotlout saw this terrifying Hiccup, which didn´t care if he burnt them alive or threw them off their dragons in insane heights, he couldn´t feel the safety anymore his knowledge of Hiccups nature made him feel. He couldn´t tell himself that his cousin would never harm him (seriously) no matter how far he went (as long as he didn´t threat his life, but he would never anyway, why should he?) and that he was safer around his cousin than anywhere else – he couldn´t tell himself that he could still trust his cousin blindly at every moment anymore.

Astrid knew Hiccup her whole life, as the others did of course, but she had always been a bit more interested in him than the others had. She saw that he wasn´t just awkward, silent and weak. She saw how deep these eyes were that always, always observed people from the distance (if he got out of his house that is) without saying a word or taking any action. She guessed that there was an enormous intellect hidden behind his walls before he began to show it. Even now, after he made peace with the dragons, was out of his house and spoke and socialized with the people of the village, she would sometimes notice how he would just watch the people from the distance, as if he was studying their behavior; she would see him hide behind his walls again and just observe, segregated from other humans. She would see him go tense when he was confronted with a new situation, with angry people or sometimes even villagers he didn´t know well – sometimes, he then just looked so… so _scared_. As if he wouldn´t know what to do, how he was supposed to react and what was going on. As if he would speak with another human being for the first time – and she knew. She knew he was scared of how people would react – because every time, every moment of his life he observed them, he tried to figure out how people worked. She knew it wouldn´t matter to tell him that everyone was different and he would have to get to know each one individually – because he wouldn´t listen. He would ignore this fact so that he wouldn´t have to confront the fact that he was unknowing. He didn´t want to see that he couldn´t fit into the people around him fully, because he couldn´t think the way they did. He didn´t want to see it, he knew, yes, but rather ignored it. _He wouldn´t accept that he was scared of people_. On the other side, though, he never had that problem with the dragons. She never saw him go tense once when he was around them, he never tried to get away from them, never looked scared or insecure – he looked happy and relaxed. And this sudden change, his… violent dragon-half was so utterly disturbing her image of him –his peaceful image of a nice, dragon-loving boy- it was nearly shattered. He always looked as if he would´ve returned home from a long journey when he was around dragons – that he was furious because of them, that he _hurt_ people, that he took action instead of watching or trying to solve the problem with logic was so wrong and not him, she wasn´t sure if she even knew Hiccup, or if she had been wrong about him all the time. What if… _this_ was hiding behind the smiles and calmness? What if… what if _this_ was in his core? Her logic mind told her otherwise, but humans tended to be led by their feelings – and her feelings were so upset she didn´t even know what to think anymore.

Fishlegs was big, strong as well if he wanted, but he was soft and gentle. The typical gentle giant. He feared many things, but was much more filled with love. He always kind of liked Hiccup - even more so, as soon as he had the chance to get to know him. Hiccup was calm, collected, nice and he really appreciated his intellect. He was happy to talk to someone who would understand anything he said, who wouldn´t be bored to have an intellectual conversation, hell, sometimes Fishlegs felt like others must feel when talking to him, because maybe he got much in his head, but not enough to match with Hiccup. He liked that Hiccup wouldn´t abuse his new powers to gain respect or scare the people (or hurt them) and he liked that he was still calm and harmless, even when he was clad in his scaly armor and his pupils obviously weren´t human anymore at all. The image of these widened pupils was calming and making him kind of feel save. He knew Hiccup _could_ destroy things, _could_ hurt them, _could_ make them his slaves or whatever – and he liked that he never _would_. The fact that he did it just now, though, let his image of Hiccup crack seriously. He was scared out of his mind, but as he returned to it and it began to race and circle heavily, some thoughts, whispering, made their way through the mess of fear. He knew Hiccup; Hiccup would never want to hurt them – but that… that just now – that wasn´t Hiccup. _Of course_ , yes, his body did do all that and _yes_ he tried to at _least_ kill them, but he wasn´t doing it on purpose. It was like a raging animal or a human so lost in his feelings that he couldn´t stop his actions – the actions he still did without being aware of it! His brows shot up and it was like someone lit a fire in the dark night. This just now – this wasn´t Hiccup himself acting! Happiness filled him as his discovery filled his mind. He didn´t really do anything, he didn´t know he was doing it! He didn´t mean to harm them at all! He – his face lost the rest of its color in under a second and he felt his inside freeze, his head felt numb. Hiccup wasn´t aware of what he was doing, thus he couldn´t control it at all, meaning i _t could hap **pen again at any moMENT**._   
Sometimes, Fishlegs really didn´t like his mind, his darn clever mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, man, dat some serious character insights here. Hope ya like it!  
> Leave yer opinion in the comments please, and, as always, reporting major errors would be very nice, I´m not a native-english speaker and want my writing rather error-free.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omg, I seriously forgot to update further. I don´t even know how. BUT HERE IT IS! Enjoy!

The Nadder in the circle lifted its head first – now that their leader didn´t radiate any strong vibes anymore, she felt the disturbed, though still very weak and thus normal-human, vibes. She looked up as curiosity flooded her mind and she saw the other humans, including her own one, just standing around staring. They all seemed anxious and confused – of course, because they didn´t know what was going on. Worry washed over Stormfly again quickly when the concerned wheeze of the Nightfury reached her and she turned her gaze back to the unconscious human. He didn´t want to wake up - they had to do something – why weren´t the humans doing anything? With her wings she nudged the Gronckle to her left and the Nightmare to her right, which got their and the attention of the other dragons as well. A quick purr and a low rumbling was enough to transmit her thoughts to the other dragons and, of course, they understood. Immediately all of them took action and, except the black one amongst them, left their leader to get their own humans to help them.

The teenagers haven´t been able to see Hiccup, but now, that the dragons parted (which pulled each of them out of their thoughts) they were shocked and confused to see Hiccup lying on the ground unmoving. Their dragons approached them somewhat rushed. Astrid and Fishlegs lifted their arms to stroke their pet-friends, but instead of receiving the gentle motions, the beasts rounded them and began to push them forward. Confused, the teenagers stumbled as they tried to withstand the force and made puzzled sounds. Their protest died down quickly when they understood that their dragons, which loved Hiccup so much, ushered their riders to help their beloved leader and thus they walked by themselves.

The teens found the behavior of their dragons to be more than strange, as said ushered them to carry Hiccup to the arena, where they had to lay him to the ground. The teens wanted to bring him home, but the dragons wouldn´t let them. Now the tame beasts sat around the still unconscious Hiccup and did the synchronization – just without him tuning in. It was strange… somehow, the teenagers noticed that something was missing. But it was helping. When they were on their way to the village, Hiccup´s condition had suddenly worsened and he began to quiver and sweat. He grimaced as if he would have nightmares and mumbled something that they couldn´t understand. Now, amidst the dragons, he seemed to be okay, relaxed… or at least better.   
Though they were relieved a bit, of course the teens still worried. As they tried to understand what the dragons said, all they understood of the humming, purring and growling was >sick<. _Sick, sick, sick_. Again and again, but the rest was still a mystery. They didn´t have new classes, because Hiccup held them and since his bad mood began he hasn´t given any.

 

Hard throbbing. That was what he felt first. Hiccup was more than confused when he woke up. It took some time just to open his eyes. He had already noticed the cold stone floor he laid on and of course he already heard the humming of the dragons, but he couldn´t understand what they said. When he realized that he couldn´t understand them, he sat up too fast out of shock, so that he felt dizzy for a moment. He scanned his surroundings, which were all the rider-dragons and some from the village – only little ones, though. Also it was late, the sun was already setting. The dragons stopped and watched him carefully and cautious. He tried to remember what had happened, but his head only started to hurt more and thus he gave up pretty quick. He remembered the last days pretty clear though, and of course his behavior. And suddenly he felt incredibly stupid for acting like he did, also ashamed and slightly embarrassed, but most of all stupid. Then the exhaustion set in. His limbs seemed to be made of iron and his thoughts became slower and slower, it became tiring to think, to wonder what happened and what was going on. He didn´t even want to try to wrap his mind around as to why he couldn´t understand the dragons at this moment. He found himself to not even care.

“Hiccup? Hiccup!” he turned his head around and soon saw Astrid, Fishlegs and the twins jog over to him. “Are you okay?” asked Fishlegs. The dragons made room for the other humans to enter – but they didn´t. Hiccup felt Toothless press himself against his back, he was somehow really thankful for it. Hiccup thought about it – was he okay? He scanned his body. No parts were newly missing (thank the Gods, one missing limb was enough) and he didn´t appear to be hurt. “I guess so… my head hurts and I feel kinda heavy. Did something happen?” he wasn´t really in the mood to ask it, to be honest, but he was sure the question would rob his sleep later if he didn´t know the answer. Fishlegs and Astrid threw each other a concerned look, but before they could say anything, Tuffnut answered to the question. “Well, you flipped, burnt down half the village and tried to kill us all.” He blurted out in a tone as if he would talk about a dent in his ax. “WHAT?!” Hiccup exclaimed, suddenly more than awake. “B-But don´t worry, nobody´s hurt…” Fishlegs tried to calm him, but it didn´t help at all. “Don´t worry?! I-I-I tried – tried to hurt you-”, “Kill! You tried to kill us.” Ruffnut corrected. Astrid hit her. “Even worse!” Hiccup shouted and jumped to his feet. Not the wisest idea, seeing as his world suddenly spun and he had trouble remaining on his feet and stumbled for a second. “Well, it´s not that bad, you didn´t mean it.” Now it was Astrid´s turn to try to calm him down. Didn´t work that well either. “That´s the point! I- I did something without wanting it! It´s even worse than an intended action! What – what if I…” he shuddered “What if I can´t control myself?” he nearly whispered in horror. The teens had to watch how he fell deeper and deeper into panic. His stance was more hunched than usually and his shoulders curled inwards, he also scanned the arena nervously and pressed his arms to his chest – he could hurt someone. Fishlegs got a grip first and stepped forward, not too far though when he saw Hiccup flinching away. “Well, you know, seeing that all dragons acted more than strange, we suggest it was a dragon thing – and you just happened to react first to whatever the cause was. You said once you were more sensible than other dragons right?” Hiccup looked at him as if he was a lifeline. “You´re right…” he said hesitantly. Yeah, he _had_ to be right. _He just had to be_.

But then…

“Then ah… then what was the cause?” Hiccup asked while letting his eyes dance from one to another teen. They all shrugged. He wanted to facepalm, but instead just put his thumb and index finger to the bridge of his nose. The heaviness of his limbs and the dizziness in his head weren´t actually helpful – and now that he was standing it didn´t get better. He felt more tired than before and just wanted to sleep for a while. The only positive thing right now was that the heat in his chest was a little bit warmer, making him feel at least a little bit comfortable. Hiccup sighed deeply. “Okay… whatever… am I needed somewhere for now?” he asked slowly and sighed again when they shook their heads, this time relieved. “Okay. I´m home... Sleeping.” With that, he dragged himself out of the arena without even questioning how and when he got there.

 

When Hiccup finally got home, he felt worse than before and guilt nagged heavily at him. His shoulders couldn´t slump down any further or his brows draw closer together. Just when he thought that at least this day was over and he would just go to bed, he noticed his father. He sat at the only table they had and stared back at him, Hiccup stared as well. He didn´t know what he should expect from his father, but he knew the look his father wore: disappointment. Hiccup sighed and his gaze dropped to the ground. “I´m in my bed.” He mumbled and made his way up.

There was no shouting. No huff. Not even a sigh. Just silence.

He seriously messed up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, it´s kinda a filler, but eh. Those are needed here and there. Think I´m gonna cut the next chapter bigger. Hope you still enjoyed! Leave a comment with a piece of your mind?


	10. Dragon Root

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What am I even doing with my baby. My heart aches.
> 
> Also I forgot to update and I´m really really sorry!

“Stoick, what happened? Did the dragons turn on you?” Hiccup flinched when he heard the question. It was _his_ fault some houses were ash. It was _his_ fire that caused the black markings on the plaza. It was _his_ fault some dragons had burn marks and several villagers were injured. He felt glares throw dagger at his back and he saw the trouble the villagers had with approaching him. Or just being _near_ him.

He wasn´t angry. He understood them, he was a risk now. He could snap any second. At least that´s what they thought.

Yes, he felt shame. But he didn´t feel even a twinge of the madness from the days before. Actually he felt pretty hollow and kind of lost. A little bit sad even.

Hiccup heard his father calm the other chief down. The man was early to arrive, but now that he was here, it made matters worse. The half-dragon let his hair fall deeper into his face to hide his eyes. Though he decided to walk around completely human as long as the other chiefs were here, he still wanted to help repairing the damage he caused. He could do it with his strength, no problem, but to use it he had to, at least, transform a bit, which resulted in his pupils forming to slits and the green stretching further. Cautious, he blinked past his bangs and scanned the other guests that came with the chief. Each chief would bring some of his men and women with him, meaning many strangers would be around. Many strangers that thought of him as a monster. A monster he eventually was.   
That was the main reason he wanted to walk around as human as possible – he was afraid. Afraid of his dragon half.   
When he walked around and had to cross the way with one of the strangers, he let his gaze automatically drop to the ground and quickly made his way past them. He even wore his normal clothes, which were a bit too big, but it was better than attracting attention. The unfamiliar men and women probably had no idea he was the son of the chief or someone important at all– which was exactly what he wanted. Though Toothless at his side caused some curious looks into his direction, but he avoided to talk by quickly shuffling away – needless to say that he was still grateful that Toothless remained at his side to accompany him. He avoided going to the plaza, but then the teenagers were given the task of cleaning it. The elders wanted the black burn-marks to be gone until the other chiefs arrived, so that it wouldn´t make them suspicious. They couldn´t need anything to add to the already existing tension.

Hiccup didn´t complain, he made the marks after all, but as soon as he arrived at the plaza, a strange feeling washed over him. The other dragons near him seemed to unsettle him suddenly – he wanted them to be gone. In addition, he felt the prickling in his eyes that he felt every time his eyes changed by themselves. But he didn´t care as he drew his brows together. However, he remained silent.

The teens were puzzled. All morning Hiccup was acting shy and as if he didn´t want to attract any attention at all, he even wore his old clothes. Okay, that wasn´t a problem, they imagined it would be harder for him than for them - but from one to another moment he changed completely. While kneeling on the ground and scrubbing the floor, he looked like he was angry and he glared at the dragons every now and then. Did they say something? No, they weren´t near him and they wouldn´t do something like that, he was their beloved leader after all – or something like that, the teens weren´t sure. When they observed the dragons though, they saw that the dragons glared at each other as well and were generally restless. While still scrubbing, the teens shot each other wary looks, but  silently agreed not to interfere and act as if nothing was going on. Maybe it were just aftereffects from the day before.

 

A loud crack was heard for everyone on the plaza. The teens´ heads flew automatically to Hiccup, who froze in place. He didn´t mean to break the ground, it was an accident, but before he could do anything, he smelled _it_.

  
The villagers looked at him as well, the ones from the other tribe needed some time to pinpoint what they were all looking at. Beneath Hiccup, there was a big crack in the stone, decorated with a circle-like pattern of other cracks around it. Fishlegs, who was nearest to the half-dragon, saw it first. Slowly, the scales began to show on Hiccups twitching hands. His hair fell into his face, so they didn’t see the scales appearing there as well, or his mouth opening, showing his dangerous teeth. Neither did they see the sides of his nose widen at the foreign scent he sucked in greedily. But they saw his back. His back, which raised and lowered from heavy breaths. Hiccup lowered himself further, he seemed stiff and somehow tortured, even more so when he grunted.

 

 

 _Nonononono – why was this happening? Stop it, stop it! Why is my body – what do I do?!_ Hiccup felt panic seep through his body, which went tense. He tried to stop the transformation, because it was caused by pure anger and rage. He didn´t want to do that – he didn´t want to flip. He didn´t want to transform. There were too many watchers, he couldn´t – _why couldn´t he sto-_

 

Screams were heard, screams of terror and fear, as four big wings broke through the green fabric, ripping it to shreds in the process. The dark wings were covered with blood in more than one place. Additionally, another sort of scream was heard, a roaring. A deafening roaring and soon more ripping sounds, ripping clothes. He grew suddenly and he grew fast. It took around ten seconds until he was fully transformed. Growling and with fletched teeth, dragon-Hiccup stared at the nearest human: Fishlegs. “Uh… Hi-Hiccup?” Fishlegs tried cautious while at the same time preparing to run or duck. _His eyes aren´t blank…_ Hiccup continued to stare at him, he shifted so that he had a better stance and spread his wings in an intimidating manner. He was crouching. Fishlegs froze in place, the fear was overwhelming and every thought of escape was gone. To be exact _every_ thought was gone - his head was completely empty. Hiccup looked like a wild cat, preparing for its jump before it would kill its target. But then he suddenly threw his head around and even changed his entire position by ninety degree. His gaze was now directed at the other dragons, Fishlegs was completely forgotten. The villagers of both tribes looked at the dragons as well and were surprised to see them not only standing, but behaving similar to Hiccup. They hissed and growled at each other, they showed off their teeth and flapped with their wings.

Fishlegs could only stare, he couldn´t believe he was still alive, until he was suddenly lifted to his feet. Astrid helped him up and mimicked for him to be silent. Slowly, they and the other humans backed away without looking away from the dragons. Meanwhile, said dragons changed their positions as well, until they stood in what looked like a loose circle. The continued to growl and hiss at each other, they all crouched and their pupils were thin slits.

Except one dragon.   
Fishlegs nearly screamed when Meatlug tried to hide behind him but at the same time full-body-nudged him. He scanned her curious and saw that she seemed to be afraid as she observed the other dragons as well. And then Fishlegs understood. He understood why the dragons turned on each other suddenly and why only Meatlug wasn´t standing with them. He jogged over to Astrid and grabbed her arm to pull her closer. “Astrid – there has to be some dragon root around.” He whispered. Though it was locked at the dragons a moment before, her gaze flew to him instantly. “Are you sure?” she whispered back. They looked at the aggressive dragons for a second. “Yes, they´re acting like Stormfly and Hookfang the last time and Meatlug isn´t affected – it _has_ to be dragon root.” He explained and Astrid nodded, it was the only plausible  solution. “So what are we gonna do?” Tuffnut asked from behind, which scared the two Vikings, mostly because he didn´t whisper. He heard their conversation. Astrid thought for a moment, before a strategy popped up in her head. “Fishlegs, you and Meatlug try to gather as many Gronckles as possible, don´t let too much time pass. We other riders calm our dragons down as far as possible, it worked last time as well. Then we will lure them away from the plaza, so that they calm down and the Gronckles, under Fishlegs command, get rid of the dragon root, just throw it into the sea, maybe into the stream that leads away from Berk.”, “Okay.” Tuffnut agreed, his sister and Snotlout as well, which heard at least the plan. They were silent for a moment and noticed that the hissing and growling got louder and more aggressive. Once in a while, one dragon tried to go further into the middle of their circle, but was quickly brought back to its position by snarls and little roars. The dragons somewhat moved in a circle, it could be a dance – just without the fun. “But… what about Hiccup? He and Toothless are both affected by the root.” Fishlegs complained. Astrid bit her bottom lip. 

 

 _“Kids, I know it´s a hard decision, but it´s necessary. It´s the best. For the village – and for Heccup. The next time he begins to… to loose control you all…” Stoick hesitated for a moment. But the same stern voice from before made him go on. A chief knows no pain, the village is the top priority, a chief has to protect his own. A chief knows no pain, a chief knows no pain, a chief knows no pain,… “You all have to stop him immediately with all you got, even if you have to shoot him down. The village must be protected.” He finished and then turned away from the shocked young faces. He just commanded them to shoot down his own son if he did something he didn´t even_ want _to do. ”Chief, are sur-”, “I told you what to do and you will do it. The safety of the whole village is  - is more important than one villager, no matter what member it is. That´s my last word.” Stoick didn´t even look at them. Not that he didn´t want to – but he couldn´t. A chief knows no pain. He can´t show weakness. A chief must protect his own. He can´t show weakness. A chief knows no pain._

_It´s hard to pretend when your heart aches._

 

Fishlegs knew what she was thinking and sputtered out the first thing he could think of. “He isn´t flipping, there are still visible pupils in his eyes... so… somewhere Hiccup is still in there.” He clarified with a serious expression. He didn´t like the emergency-plan at all. Neither of them did, but he was troubled by it the most, which was understandable – he didn´t like violence-to-solve-problems-plans at all; or just violence in general. “You do it. You calm Toothless and Meatlug calms Hiccup.” Snotlout said. Fishlegs went pale. “Do _what_? Toothless isn´t my dragon, he could kill me!” he exclaimed frightened. “No, no, wait, it isn´t that idiotic. Toothless is smart, so is Hiccup, it could actually work.”, “The word  could isn´t exactly reassuring!” Fishlegs squeaked and balled his fists in a nervous manner at the height of his chest. “But it´s our only chance Fishlegs. Let´s just do it. After we calmed all of them and lured them away, you have to gather Gronckles, so you better don´t pass out.”, “Wait, wouldn´t it be better if Fishlegs calms Hiccup and Meatlug Toothless? Like - Meatlug is at least fire proof.” Ruffnut asked. They all stared at her and Fishlegs´ gaze flicked to the growling but still focused Hiccup. He took a very deep breath. “Okay. I can do that.” He got surprised looks but he just turned to the ring of dragons. “Okay, let´s do this.” He marched forward without any hesitation and the others had to hurry a bit to quickly follow him.

Each of the teens gulped hard before they stepped in front of their dragon. They knew these creatures for a while now, they loved them so much, the teens knew they were loved back – but it was still one of the most frightening things in the world to do. The villagers of both tribes around them that still watched were filled with shock and fear – what were those kids doing? Were they trying to kill themselves?

No, of course not. And for the riders in front of their dragons the plan worked perfectly. Soon they got their dragons to start backing off of the plaza. Meatlug accomplished her goal pretty quickly as well when she just flew straight into Toothless. The Nightfury surely didn´t expect it and was thrown back quite the bit. He shook his head which was still a bit dizzy and soon backed off by himself when he understood what was going on.

  
Fishlegs wasn´t that lucky. Hiccup crouched in front of him and even though his body was around the height of Fishlegs´ knees, his wings however still overtopped the human with ease. He held up his hands in a calming manner and tried to not faint from fear while these gleaming eyes bored into his with their glare. He saw saliva drop from the fletched teeth to the ground. “Hey Hiccup, it´s me Fishlegs. You remember me, right?” he began in a voice that he hoped sounded as calm as he wanted it to. The growling stopped and Hiccup´s features relaxed slightly, but he was still tense. “Yeah, yeah, I see, you remember me, right? We´re friends, meaning you don´t want to harm me. You don´t want to harm anyone. You remember right? Remember who you are Hiccup.” His calmness and confidence grew with each word he spoke, especially when he saw the wings slowly lower themselves. Hiccup drew his brows together and squinted his eyes at Fishlegs – he looked frustrated. Suddenly he lifted one of his arms and let it step back. Fishlegs made one step forward. “Yeah, that´s good, see, we´re making progress. Make another step, c´mon, you can do this. Remember who you are Hiccup.” Hiccup attempted to make another step back but set it back forward instead. He began to growl again and hissed at Fishlegs. The young human was sure he saw the pupils thin out more. “No, Hiccup, you´re not a monster. Remember who. You. Are. We are friends Hiccup, I don´t want to hurt you, and you don´t want to hurt me.” The last part wore a tad of uncertainty, because his gaze flicked to the still bared teeth. Something strange happened then. Hiccup made a clear step back, then a step forward and again a step back before he looked even more frustrated and angry, then confused and again frustrated before he shook his head violently. Then suddenly he roared in what sounded like pure frustration towards the ground and flew off so suddenly, he threw Fishlegs to the ground with the wind his wings made. Fishlegs stared after him confused and blinked once, twice, before he stood up. He shoved the question if that just now really happened or not into a corner of his mind and went to do his original job – gather Gronckles and get rid of the dragon root. This job, at least, went perfectly, though there was now a big hole that had to be re-filled.

 

 _Fly back, fly back, burn, burn it all, fly back, turn around, burn him, slit him open, spill his guts, turn around, turn around, burn everything down… no, no, no, I don´t wanna do this, keep flying, keep fighting, I know who I am, I know who I am, I know who I am…. Slice them all, turn their insides out, burn them to ash, turn_ ba _ck, turn back,_ tUrn _baCK, b_ U ** _r_** _n, b **u** R_n _, BuR **n** …. I know who I am, I know who I am, I know who I am… _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I´d cut it bigger. I warned you.
> 
> Also, the usual: Always getting informed bout up-dates and everything else   
> here: http://otaku-marijane.tumblr.com/ (main fun-blog)  
> here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/marijane-akuma (art-only blog)  
> and here: https://twitter.com/MarijaneXD
> 
> aaaaand, if ya wanna have a discussion/have questions/have prompts/anything else, go here: http://marijane-akuma-works.tumblr.com


	11. As for The Conditions of Your Stay...

Hiccup crashed into a massive tree, which let said fall to the ground in pieces only. He burnt another and finally calmed when he was halfway through the third just with his teeth. He transformed back quickly and as fast as possible. The strange madness and fury were gone – but what in the world caused it? There was this smell – and then bad things happened. He remembered to feel strange rejection against the other dragons, he felt greed and fury burn in him – his face cleared when the answer popped up in his head. Dragon root. Of course – it had to be the cause! He had been around the plaza so often in his dragon form, or at least a bit transformed, the effects must have summed up until he flipped without him noticing! He sighted in relief and let himself fall down into the moss and dirt. He felt extremely delighted, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his chest.

_But what do I do now…? I can´t go back to the village like that… the root could still be there – maybe wait until the others try to get me back?  
Wait – they don´t know that I´m back to normal, they could think I´m still raging… or I could´ve flown away from the island… Fishlegs should´ve figured out that there has to be dragon root beneath the plaza… right?_

Slowly, he lifted his arm and scanned it in the warm sun. _Huh – I didn´t even notice the good weather…_ Curious, he let his scales come out only on the arm and observed with a wandering mind how they glistened greenish in the light. Now that he saw them in a good light, he noticed that not all of them looked black, some were more of a deep brown. He could´ve sworn they were a very deep green, since they glinted in that color – no, wait, there _were_ some green ones as well. Caught by curiosity, he picked one that shined green and tried to rip it out. It hurt a bit, like when you rip out a single hair, but it was okay. After that, he let the scales disappear, but while the normal slits, caused by the scales, closed miraculously, the slit where he´d ripped out the scale formed a light scar. He didn´t spent another thought of it, seeing as he was too occupied examining the loose scale. It reflected the light a little less, but still didn´t let any of it through when he held the single scales up into the light.   
Eventually he found himself trying to let the scales come out only at one part of a limb – though he could try and try and try, it wouldn´t work. He still got that far, that it would appear at the part he wanted it and then a second later on the rest of the limb, even though he didn´t want them to. When he sighted, he heard rushed steps in the forest and recognized them pretty quickly – Toothless. He stood up swiftly and tried a smile, perfectly in time to hear something additionally to Toothless. There was heavy breathing of a human – it was a girl – Astrid? He gulped and it was then when Toothless with Astrid on his back appeared on the clearing. Astrid stared at him with wide eyes and he actually stumbled a little bit backwards. Hiccup felt his mouth go dry. “Hiccup! Here you are – we were searching for you everywhere.” She explained while jumping off Toothless and running to him to hug him. He was too surprised to do anything but it was over already anyways. “Listen – what happened the last weeks was not your fault okay? It was a gigantic piece of dragon root.” She said and tightened her grip on his upper arms. “Yeah I uh I, well, I suspected this  after I came here.” He explained unsure with a vague gesture at the area. Astrid sighed and let go of him. “Well, and _we_ thought you would behaving like that because your dragon half was affecting your personality! Now that we know it was the dragon root it makes much more sense. Fishlegs said even the Gronckles were a little upset because of the root, because it was so big, and he thinks you might have just been affected earlier than the other dragons, because your senses are sharper, like you told us once.” She crossed her arms in her usual manner and stood in her hip while talking. Hiccup listened attentive and a question began to nag at his mind. “What do you mean my dragon half would affect my personality?” he asked with in confusion squinted eyes. How should that be even possible?

Astrid looked confused – why would he want to know? It didn´t matter anymore, after all. She decided to better just tell him. “Well, we understood the dragons were saying something like >sick with dragon< and since every time you turn completely dragon you are… very aggressive, we thought the dragon part of yours would be much more aggressive than the usual you, like an opposite. And since you were more half dragon than human up to that point constantly, we thought maybe this aggressiveness was showing in your behavior. As if it would overflow into your actual personality.” She explained and after Hiccup thought it through several times it could make sense.

If they wouldn´t miss this tiny little detail.

He drew his brows slightly together. “I only have one personality, and that isn´t parted at all, it´s mixed up smoothly, one homogenous mass of half dragon and half human.” He said and gestured wildly with his hands. She seemed to want to say something back, but stopped herself and actually looked unsure while scanning him. Astrid wasn´t the person to be unsure. “What?” he asked cautious. “Well… “ she looked away for a moment, “… if you say there is no extra only dragon part, that would mean not your dragon half, but you yourself acted when you went on a rampage.” She said quietly. Hiccup stared at her – she… she was right. Hiccup´s breath hitched once from the shock.

If he had only himself inside of him, no extra parts, no second personality, that would mean his only personality, he himself, not some crazy instincts or whatever, caused so much destruction… it meant he tried to kill them by free will. At this point, Hiccup went so deep into his thoughts he forget where he was, that Astrid and Toothless were still there, even what happened the last few days. So if he had only one personality, which tried to kill his friends, wouldn´t that mean that he secretly had the wish to harm them and it was just his common sense that held him back from doing so? But did he want to hurt his friends? His entire mind screamed no, but he knew some people wished for things without knowing it. Maybe he did not exactly wish to harm them, but to be some sort of dictator? Or ruler? Or just a beast no one would dare to go against?

…

No, that was just plain ridiculous.

He didn´t like to rule, maybe give some commands, but who wouldn´t? It would be his job later anyways, wouldn´t be that good if he didn´t want to do it at all. But he´d never want to enslave someone – it was so not him, he didn´t even know how to call it. Like an exact opposite.

…

Maybe he did have two personalities? Then would they be these opposites? And his normal human mind was the one taking action all the time so that he just didn´t notice this other part? And was this other part really inherited by his dragon half? But the other dragons weren´t aggressive or raging naturally, he shouldn´t be as well – maybe it just came out because it was really furious. Like – when he was near dragon root. He HAD been near the plaza all the time.

“Okay, I think you might be right with that half-personality part, but I guess my dragon part then isn´t somehow aggressive but just came out because it GOT angry, caused by the nonstop exposure to the dragon root and thus it came out, mixing with my actual, original personality, but now that the root is removed it shouldn´t be a problem, which would be great.” He sputtered out in one breath, which caused him to speak so fast Astrid had problems following him. But she understood that he agreed and that was enough for the moment. She had more important matters right now anyway.

“Okay good. Listen, Silent Sven saw the first ships arriving – and seems like nearly all of the tribes are coming at the same time.” Hiccup gulped – so they were here. “And the dragons are still kinda upset. We figured they were nervous because they don´t know where you are, so you have to hurry back with us.” Hiccup nodded and seconds later they both sat on Toothless and took off. He knew how important it was that the dragons showed only their best behavior, or the other chiefs could never see that they were living here as friends, not as tamed weapons.

When the Village came into sight, the first thing they saw were numerous crowds of people. The dragons tried to avoid the new people, they were scared of their number –especially the little ones- and hid where they could or run away. Thus it was rather easy to find the main dragons thsst stood around on a littler plaza, their riders were with them. The teens all looked up when Toothless landed, so did the dragons. Astrid jogged over to Stormfly to give her a gentle scratch on the nose. The teens looked expectantly at Hiccup, but he saw in their stance that they were ready to run. So they also expected the worst.

He sighted, but didn´t even bother to get down from Toothless. “It´s okay, I´m perfectly fine, don´t worry.” They actually shifted into more comfortable positions. “Okay, I have to have a word with all dragons, but catching them one by one will take too long. I guess the fastest way would be to fly over the village and signal them to follow. Bring them to the arena, there´s the most space and there aren´t any… visitors. Any questions?” the question was answered when they all got on their dragons. Hiccup nodded. “Good. Also Snotlout- “ his cousin looked up with an innocent face. “No scaring the visitors, we don´t want our dragons banned.” He looked disappointed but grumbled agreeing nonetheless.

 

Stoick had just ordered his men to inform every chief that they would meet in the great hall when suddenly he heard a scream. When he turned sighing, he saw a Monstrous Nightmare and a shouting Snotlout on it, beneath them were the scared woman and some Terrible Terrors which wouldn´t listen to Snotlout. Obviously the as always glaring Nightmare was scaring her, seeing as it flew that close to her – and she seemed to be more of an house-wife, not a warrior. That would explain why she screamed.   
Stoick started to walk over to her while telling the others to not panic, but before he fully arrived, a Nightfury came out of nowhere and landed on the ground, causing even some grown men to gasp for air. His skinny son jumped to the ground and lifted his arms in front of the woman. “Hey, hey, it´s all okay, don´t be scared.” He said and she actually calmed down when she looked at him. Stoick stopped to observe how his son was doing. When Hiccup turned he saw him smile reassuringly while walking over to Hookfang. “Snotlout, I got this, check if you see some Nadder with the herds, they like to play with the sheep!” he shouted upwards and after nodding, Snotlout flew off. Hiccup walked over to the Terrors and whispered to them without letting anyone see, but Stoick knew what he did, he saw it countless times after all.

There were four Terrible Terrors and all of them climbed onto Hiccup pretty quickly. One settled on his head and looked around, two on his shoulders and the last one around his chest. He turned to the woman who was watching shocked, probably because she has never seen one skinny boy endangering himself like that – most Vikings knew dragons only as dangerous creatures. And he didn´t wear any armor. “See? They´re totally calm – and extremely cuddly. Also, all dragons with riders on them won´t do anything, I can assure you of that. Here, want to try? You can just scratch the front of his nose, those love that.” He lifted his arm and one of the Terrors from his shoulders scrambled onto it and sniffed curiously at the woman from some distance. The woman hesitated, but after Hiccup nodded and told her to go on, she lifted her hand hesitantly and just before she could touch the nose, the dragon closed the last distance and nuzzled her hand purring. Hiccup chuckled when it scrambled over to her arm and rubbed its face on her cheek. Just a tad nervous, she laughed surprised and scratched it as if she had never done something else. Stoick was again surprised by the convincing-skills of his son. He then recognized the woman as the wife of one of the chiefs. Well, that meant someone more that would be on their side when it came to a decision.   
Stoick went over to them and laid a hand on the small shoulder that was free now. Hiccup turned his head around, the Terror on it looked curiously up to Stoick. “You bring them to the arena?” Stoick asked and Hiccup nodded. “Yeah uh…” his gaze flew to the visitors, some were still watching and or listening to them. “…err some last preparations Chief.” Stoick nodded and patted his shoulder. After that, he saw Hiccup getting onto Toothless and taking off from the corner of his eyes with all four Terrible Terrors on him. He had been careful not to show any further affection to Hiccup, as if he was just some boy. Only very few chiefs knew what his son looked like and even fewer knew his name – the different chiefs didn´t really interact that much with each other. But that wasn´t the reason he avoided to show affection – it was because of Hiccup himself. He didn´t like attention and especially now, with so many strangers and maybe doubters, he couldn´t use any extra attention. Stoick did understand it without Hiccup needing to tell him. Maybe he hasn´t been the best father in the past, but he was changing that and obviously it worked pretty good.

 

The great hall was more than full, the barrow was nearly overflowing, but eventually they settled down. They wouldn´t hold the actual council this day, it was only a greeting-and-explaining-meeting. Eventually Stoick was interrupted while explaining where the visitors would sleep, when the whispering and rumoring got too loud.

He had heard _it_ long ago, but ignored it, seeing as it became a common sound over the time. But he had expected that it couldn´t be avoided to be explained. Though the arena was pretty far away, he figured the humming would still be heard because all dragons were participating this time.   
“Silence, please!” he shouted louder and the crowd silenced, all eyes were back at him. “I can assure you, you don´t have to worry about the humming! It is nothing dangerous, our… our dragon-expert is explaining the conditions of your stay to the dragons and he is remembering them to mind their behavior around you, to make your stay as comfortable as possible.” Stoick felt a twinge in his guts when he spoke about his son as if he was a total stranger. “While you are here, you will mostly hear it around the mid of the day, only once and it won´t take that long. If you want, you can even go watch later, it´s completely safe and interesting to watch, but please don´t interrupt.” He explained while scanning the crowd. The woman from before looked rather interested, some others seemed curious too.   
“Also, about the dragons themselves, please keep your calm around them if possible. If not, than just don´t start any fights, meaning you should confront them with respect, especially the bigger ones, they´re proud creatures, as proud as we are. Due to specific treatment I wouldn´t try to go near a dragon when you just ate eel, have or had some in your hands or were near some not long ago, they could get upset because of the smell – rest assured they still won´t hurt you.” Stoick sucked in air for more but someone interrupted him. “Isn´t your son this dragon-expert?” there was some whispering heard while Stoick weighted up if he should just ignore the question or answer it. He did what he thought his son would do, who was better at keeping people pleased, which he _had_ to do for now, no matter what. “Ah yes, my son is in charge of our dragons.”

“All of them or just the ones you ride on?” another Viking asked, Stoick couldn´t see which one. But obviously they all seemed to be interested in this topic – much more than in the conditions of their stay anyway.

“All of them. He will also take care of it should unfamiliar dragons arrive, which is highly unlikely but not impossible.”

“Why didn´t you introduce him to us? Or are you doing that later?”

Stoick hesitated. He didn´t plan to introduce his son, it was exactly the opposite of what would be positive for his son´s nerves right now. He sighed inwardly. “No, I´m not going to introduce him. If you have some topics to discuss with him, you can ask all teens about his whereabouts, even some of the dragons. He is rather busy right now and had to take care of the dragons immediately, that´s why he isn´t here and he won´t come afterwards. I would ask you to not crowd him later, it isn´t like he will disappear after the meeting. He said he didn´t want to come when I offered it.”

Stoick wanted to change the topic, but obviously the crowd had other plans.

“Why didn´t he want to come?”

“Is he hiding himself?”

“Are you hiding him because you didn´t tell us the truth about him?”

“Are we not allowed crowd him because he is more dangerous than you say after all?”

“SILENCE!” Stoick shouted and the shouts, the whispers and conversations died down.

“I told you once and I told the truth: he didn´t come because he simply didn´t want to. Also he isn´t dangerous, but I don´t want my son to be hindered at his work and duties by crowds surrounding him. No one is hiding, that´s it, further questions later. Now, as for the resting place of the…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pleeease leave a comment?


	12. The First Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the countless visitors aarive on Berk trouble occurs, and poor Hiccup has to deal with all of it.

Hiccup made sure the dragons understood. They understood pretty good why the humans were scared of them and why they should try to keep it down, even though there were so much more humans than dragons. They kind of liked the thought to be much stronger than humans in general, if not always. Some made jokes and the synchronization was nearly interrupted when Hiccup had it hard to stifle his laughs.   
Later, near the end, he felt their concern and worries flood him anew. He sent questioning whines back and soon got pictures of sickness and the smell of death was tickling in his nose. They notified him that they feared he was infected with something he could only interpret as >dragon-killing-fever<, but he could assure them that he felt better. They showed him memorized feelings and impressions from cases of the past, dragons that had the same disease. They were also troubled by the impression that he seemed paler than usual. He assured them that he was feeling good and explained the thing with the dragon-root. He felt the disgust from them, they hated, despised this root, it caused more trouble than fights about food and territories together. They got why he and the other humans thought it was the fault of the root and even shared the opinion when they heard it. The dragons confirmed that Halfa-leaders, as he understood it, were more sensitive, which was another reason they were leaders, their senses were even better than the ones of dragons.

Leaders were the first to notice danger and warn the others, so that they could escape safely. When he ended the synchronization and let his scales disappear, he opened his eyes to curious watchers, which stood at the brim of the arena. His eyes widened at the sight, it were only few –the woman from before was under them and waved excitedly at him, which he returned hesitantly- but still… they watched.

They knew who he was.

 _What_ he was.

He nodded absentmindedly when he noticed the requests to leave from the dragons of the villagers. The dragons didn´t like it in the arena when it was that crowded in there. Some were still reminded of the past, others just didn´t like the little space they had.   
Hiccup had long thought about widening the arena, but they would have to remove countless steel-parts that were embedded into the walls, the cage that was somehow a ceiling would have to be removed as well, also some cages, their gates and the machinery behind it – they would have to rebuilt the entire arena and they sure had other things to worry about right now.   
Toothless nudged Hiccups head and whined concerned, successfully ripping him from his thoughts. Hiccup rubbed one eye but grinned while patting his friend. “No worries bud, I´m fine.”   
He told the truth, he felt fine, a little bit tired though, but fine.

Before he could leave the arena, to check on all the nests and food-buffets, he was confronted by Fishlegs and Astrid. “Hey, are you okay? You seem a little bit pale?” Fishlegs asked and Astrid nodded agreeing. Hiccup raised his brows. “Yeah, I´m fine. But hey, listen to this, the dragons told me that they had feared I had dragon-killing-fever, because of the sneezing, the bad mood and uh… tantrums, they thought I would die any minute, can you imagine that?” the teens in front of him looked shocked. “Bu-but you are okay, right?” Astrid asked. She sounded scared – actually _scared_. Hiccup blinked once but nodded slowly while answering. “Yeah, yeah, I´m okay. They agreed later on to our theory that… my behavior was caused by the root.” He heard the feint sound of sighting, but couldn´t see it. He was still grateful for the concern. “Also, Fishlegs, could you come with me? I need you and Meatlug at the feeding machinery, neither Toothless nor I can get down there with our wide wings and I wanted to do a last check today. I think a dragon mentioned strange clicking sounds and I could need some help from someone who´s good in flying at one position.” He explained and Fishlegs nodded with a smile.

He loved it to help Hiccup when it came to repairing things, sometimes he would let him help with inventions too. He liked it to see Hiccup work, Gobber did as well, it was actually incredible to watch how he made up plans or invented complicated machines out of nothing, even when something was broken it was a thing to see how he noticed the failure AND knew how to fix it. The other teens weren´t that interested in this stuff, Astrid sometimes if it didn´t get too complicated but only then.

Toothless licked Hiccups face before they started to walk out and Hiccup pretended to complain while shoving his dragon a bit snickering. He felt that the dragons felt the need to cheer him up and it worked, he felt more at ease. He could tell easily that the dragons, despite his reassurance that the humans wouldn´t harm them, were still nervous around so many unfamiliar humans. The woman from before, now with the same –now pretty pleased- Terror on her shoulders, accompanied them (meaning Hiccup, Toothless, Fishlegs and Meatlug) on their walk through the village. Hiccup found her to be a really friendly woman, which explained why the Terror was so relaxed around her.

Little fun-fact here: even though dragons communicate with each other through expressions, meanings and feelings, they also send and get vibes from each other, which enables them to read the mood of each other without having to ask. And even though humans can´t feel these vibes, they still sent them out and dragons can read them. When they get aggressive vibes, they go into fighting mode as a self-protecting reflex, but when a human sends calm and smooth vibes because they are calm and happy, the dragons know they can relax as well and get very cuddly.

“What do we do if the problem is much deeper down?” Fishlegs frowned. Hiccup made this gesture where you lift one hand and let your head cock to the side slightly while shrugging. “Then I guess I´ll have to climb down? But it shouldn´t be that far down, the ropes we have are long enough I think.” Suddenly Hiccup stopped dead in his tracks and looked down at himself. His clothes were still damaged and he wore his west made of warm fur instead the remains of his green shirt… and they were next to the smithy. He had a set of clothes in there, but it were his… his dragon clothes… oh well. “Ah – I´ll be right back, just change my clothes.” He assured and was gone a second after.   
While he changed as quickly as possible, the woman, who as they now knew was called Marianna, asked a few questions about the machinery they were going to check and other things. She even asked if it was okay to take the dragon with her, since she was already dearly attached to it. Fishlegs had to answer honestly that he didn´t know about that. He explained that only some dragons actually belonged to the humans here, if it came to the Terrible Terrors that is, and she would have to ask Hiccup, who was, apparently, the only one who could tell them apart.

Hiccup struggled with himself. He had changed and had to go out now but… he would gain even more attention with his clothes. No Viking that had all his senses together chose his clothing in a way that showed much skin, because skin wasn´t as sturdy as metal-armor. And not few tribes were still fighting with dragons.

Hiccup planned that, after the meeting went well, he could visit other tribes and help them to a relationship of peace between humans and dragons, since none of them were naturally war-addicted beings.   
But back to his clothing – nearly his whole back was exposed, a part that was usually shielded the thickest, his arms, his thin arms, were naked as well as if the bones were asking to get broken. Most of his sides were open as well, the part of the upper body that was the most vulnerable. He wouldn´t feel cold, he felt warm and cuddly all the time, which was why his arms were exposed as well. He looked down at his bare foot – the shoe from yesterday needed to be repaired but now it was a pain to walk in it, let alone that being barefoot felt worlds better anyway. If he went out there, the other Vikings will undoubtedly think he was _asking_ to get killed.   
With a last, shuddering, breath -and sweating hands- he stepped out from the cover of the smithy and into sight. After gulping hard he acted as if nothing was unusual (which was exactly the case, actually) and continued walking.   
Fishlegs continued their former discussion without a blink, he was used to this clothing already, but the woman was obviously surprised. However, before she could ask, Fishlegs remembered her request. “Oh yeah, does that Terror belong to someone? She wants to keep it.” His friend pointed out and Hiccup turned to the Terror. He knew that one, he was often in the woods and stole a fish from Toothless two days ago, but he didn’t belong to any human. He could smell it wasn´t around a specific human often either. “No, he´s free. He likes to fly through the woods, so you shouldn´t worry if he disappears for a day or two. He might have some trouble for the first days in the new environment if you take him with you, but he should feel comfortable after a few days, especially after he knows where to find you; you should show him were you go to the most. Ah… you don´t have any other pet dragons right?” the woman shook her head dumbfounded. She didn´t expect so much. Fishlegs did though, because Hiccup was in his element when it came to dragons after all. “Ah yeah I guessed that. This breed usually lives in packs, maybe you should get another one or two, since he might feel really lonely otherwise. They can get sick from loneliness too, so you should also pay attention to him or let him accompany you as often as possible. The most important thing: even though they eat nearly all kinds of fish, never give him eel. He wouldn´t eat it if he knew it was eel, but it could happen by coincidence, so better not have any at home at all. They get very sick when they eat eel and can´t control their fire. Other than that I can tell he´s really relaxed around you, meaning he likes you.” He chuckled and the woman skipped in. “Thank you, I will see to follow your advices.”  


While continuing their walk the woman asked what she should feed him and somehow they came to the topic what the different breeds liked the most, which meant that Fishlegs was able to contribute much as well, especially to what Gronckles liked. They were interrupted though, just seconds away from their destination, when suddenly a Nadder made its way fast and roughly to Hiccup; unfortunately, she pushed some humans to the ground while doing so. Hiccup heard shouts and grumbling, but was too occupied with reading the scared vibes of the Nadder, which tried to hide itself behind him. He groaned when the awful smell of eel hit him – it was all over the poor dragon. Wait a minute – wasn´t that…? “Stormfly?” Hiccup asked while shielding his nose. “What in the world happened to you?” he continued while trying to comfort her with one hand, but, of course, she was upset by the smell that clung to her. Not even a second later, Hiccup heard the laughing of children only for it to stop abruptly directly behind him.

The kids were _thrilled_ by their little game. They had slime of eel on their hands and played tag with this blue dragon; it was funny to see the dragon so scared and troubled and they knew it wouldn´t harm them. But they felt a little bit of fear when they saw the dragon hide behind a human whose back was exposed to them. He had strange marks running down his freckled back, four of them and he was shocked about the state the dragon was in.   
The kids stood stiff when they realized _who_ they had ran into and they knew the consequences would be horrible. That had to be the son of the chief. The one who was in charge of the dragons. And they were messing with one of the dragons. The girl amongst them shrieked when he turned abruptly to them and his eyes weren´t as human as they expected them to be – the pupils were slits; really thin slits, on a too wide green ground. The green was pushing the white away, far enough to make it nearly disappear. But he shielded his nose, which confused them. He squinted at the kids and drew his brows together. “Who. Was. That?” it wasn´t just a question, it was a stone cold demand. The children felt fear creep through them and remained silent from the shock. The young man in front of them seemed to be towering over them and they felt even littler. Villagers around them watched the scene curious, but also cautious. “Who smeared eel on this dragon?” he demanded to know in the same stern voice. The kids weren´t able to answer, fearing what would happen to them if they did. “Forget it, I can smell it. You three!” the kids flinched when he pointed at them, but he stepped to the side and then pointed at the dragon. “Apologize to her.” The children were too shocked for a few seconds, but eventually the girl beneath them got a grip. “I´m sorry I smeared eel on you.” The boys skipped in. “Me too.” They mumbled each. All three looked to the ground ashamed. Hiccup nodded determined. “Good. Now please wash your hands. After that, you will give Stormfly a bath, the dragon knows where. You better don´t do something like that again, it´s really mean. If a blonde-haired and angry girl comes to you, it´s Astrid, her rider. You do what she tells you.” They nodded and went to wash their hands. Then he turned and explained everything to Stormfly, before she went into the direction the kids went off to as well.   
Marianna seemed hesitant to raise her voice again, but when Hiccup let his hand drop his face was back to its friendly expression and his eyes were more human-y. Toothless and Meatlug sneeze-snorted to show their disgust. This smell would always be awful. “Uhm… I apologize for their behavior. I know their parents very well and they taught their kids to show no mercy when it comes to dragons, since they don´t as well.” She explained, and even if she didn´t intend to say anything offending, Hiccup stiffened at the accusation. “Dragons aren´t merciless creatures, they´re actually really loving, but they react to humans in the same way back a human reacts to them. For example, I was about to kill Toothless when he was tied to the ground, but I didn´t and freed him instead. Afterwards he didn´t kill me as well, even though he clearly had the chance to. It´s like – treat others like you want to be treated yourself, really.” She nodded. “I understand, I will tell them later.” Fishlegs and Hiccup threw each other a look and snorted. The woman didn´t understand what was so funny, so Fishlegs explained it to her: “If Astrid finds them, you don´t need to scold them anymore, trust me.” He chuckled and Hiccup nodded.   
After that, they finally came to their destination. The problem was fixed quickly as well, though Meatlug had to let Hiccup down deeper than they thought. When they finished it was already evening and the next problem occurred. When he came back to the surface, he didn´t need Fishlegs to tell him that there was trouble at the arena, since he heard it already. He heard heated voices, snarls and roars.

Pure frustration was seeping from the arena.

“Oh gods, what´s going on now?” he asked and made a frustrated gesture. Fishlegs frowned. “I think I heard something about it earlier – some Vikings have to sleep in the arena, there are tents prepared for them.” Hiccup groaned. “And of course the dragons don´t like that idea. Why didn´t my father tell me? Nevermind, I gotta get there quickly.” that said, Hiccup pulled the trigger at the machinery around Toothless so that the dragon could fly on its own while already extending his own wings. They both knew it was a bugging feeling when you don´t fly all day – okay, nearly all day, so he decided it was the best if they flew on their own each. “See you later!” he called to Fishlegs who waved before Hiccup flew off.

Up in the sky, Hiccup took a deep breath and let his scales come out for a bit, he would have to let them disappear before actually encountering the visitors. It was such a refreshing feeling, though. When he looked over to Toothless, he saw his bud grinning back to him in that adorable sloppy way and grinned himself. The young Halfa even made a roll and laughed when Toothless did the same. Flying was the best, after all.

However, he flew a bit too high and thus surprised some of the angry Vikings when he landed on the roof of the arena – or rather, the chains said consisted of; Toothless dived down earlier since he had to use the gate. Hiccup knew there were plans for removing the chains in two weeks, because Gobber was too busy with adjusting his smithy to its new purpose for now, but he couldn´t wait for it.

The men and few women looked up curiously and forgot their anger for a moment, which gave Hiccup enough time to climb over to the chains that weren´t hanging over a tent, slip through them with folded wings and land smoothly on the ground between the tents, that -apparently- stood in a circle. He let his wings disappear and waited until they all gathered around him. “So? What is the problem?” he asked with raised brows.   
He saw the dragons stand behind the humans; they looked as unpleased as the humans did. “We don´t want to sleep together with the dragons! They also tried to get us out of here!” a man explained and the others made agreeing noises. “I couldn´t prepare the dragons for your stay, because I wasn´t informed that you would sleep in here, so I apologize for their behavior – dragons can get very territorial when it comes to their own space. Usually the dragons of most of us riders sleep in here, for them you were unpleasant guests. Still, I would ask you to get along with them, I will have a word with them afterwards. Rest assured they won´t harm you.” Hiccup explained and lifted his hands in a calming manner. “What if they set something on fire? We will be trapped in here!” someone else complained. “They won´t set things on fire. They never do that without an explicit command from their respective riders or me, also the gate won´t be closed, the exit will be open all the time.” He tried, but they still seemed unpleased.

Hiccup sighed and tried to think. He still had some things to do… no, they would just have to wait until tomorrow. “I can stay here as well and watch over them, if that would make your night more comfortable.” He offered and there wasn´t an answer at first. He still heard them whisper and contemplate. “Do you really have full control over the dragons? What if they won´t listen to you? They´re beasts after all!” Hiccup tensed and turned abruptly to the one that had said that to stare him down. “They. Aren´t. _Beasts_.” He hissed but took a deep breath to calm himself. "The dragons of Berk are our friends, they count as a part of our village, of our families. I ask you to respect this and them as equal members of our tribe. They will listen to me if I give orders, to answer your question. Also…” he lifted his chin and thus looked down at the man who insulted them. “… if you want to be treated with respect, then do so yourself as well. That´s it. If you still don´t want to sleep in here, then there are plenty of grassy fields on our island free for usage.” Thus, he interrupted their eye-contact and walked over to the dragons who waited for him to do so.

There was Hookfang, a freshly bathed Stormfly, Toothless and Barf and Belch. He figured Meatlug would sleep with Fishlegs as long as the visitors were present. The dragons pleaded with wheezing and whining for him to make all those noisy and unfamiliar humans go away. It made his insides hurt when he had to reject the pleading, the begging. Toothless looked unbelieving and shocked at Hiccup when he explained he would stay the night in the arena as well. Toothless knew he would´ve to stay as well then. The other dragons were, of course, rather relieved about hearing the news.

In the end, they resulted in a big cuddling pile of dragons pressed against each other in one cave with Hiccup in the middle of it all. He was somewhat shielded, not only by the dragons, but the darkness as well when the night came. Only because of that, he dared to transform a little bit more than usual. It felt good, as if a weight was lifted from him while his wings came out, along with the scales, the teeth and sort-of claws. He gave in to the pulling and let his pupils turn to slits and the green stretch into every nook of his eyes, letting the white around it disappear. And _it_ occurred again. He ignored it again, though.   
Sometimes, just sometimes, when he transformed like now to relax (and sleep, since sleeping in that state was way more comfortable) he felt something like a slight tugging or pulling on the end of his spine. It didn´t hurt or let him feel uneasy, it was more like feeling someone gently laying a hand on his shoulder, just that it wasn´t his shoulder. Anyway, it was nothing to worry about, he was oddly sure of that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment, it´s what edges me on.


	13. Second Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second day is in no way better than the first.

The next morning was hell.

Too much noise greeted Hiccup, so he nuzzled his head deeper into the pile of warm and smooth scales around him. Sadly, that didn´t help at all. So, he stretched his wings and other limbs lazily before he turned back to his human form. With a wide yawn that showed off his teeth which were slower to disappear, he pushed some wings off him (turns out to be one of Hookfang and one of Stormfly, Toothless was up and gone already) and stood up to stretch again.

Then, he turned to see lots of people running around frantically while shouting at each other. Hiccup groaned and dragged his hands over his face. Afterwards, knowing that he had to, he looked for the course of the panic. It surely wasn´t a raging dragon, since that would be louder and everything would be on fire.   
Because he didn´t get a clue by just standing next to the crowd, he let his wings come out again and flew up to the ceiling, where he climbed over the rattling chains in favor of searching the reason they were all freaking out. He felt annoyance making waves in him but ignored it. Though he really had no nerve to deal with this right now, he continued his search until he found what he searched.

He actually sat down and let his legs swing a bit while watching the scene beneath him – strangely, he didn´t feel the need to take action immediately, it was kind of funny to watch them fret over nothing.

There were several  Nadder, some in red, others more in a violet-ish color and they didn´t look that pleased. He saw littler ones, hatchlings hiding behind their parents´ legs. He tilted his head to the left – why were there hatchlings? It wasn´t time for eggs or even hatchlings yet? Maybe those dragons bred at another time of the year?   
Anyway, he felt the distress of the foreign dragons and soon saw one or two panicking hatchlings in the crowd, running around in search for their parents. They were pushed by the legs of the humans and thus bit them (or tried to, little hatchlings didn´t have sharp teeth) or scratched them (tried to, really) while running from place to place.   
Okay, now that he counted more than eight he was sure to know why the humans panicked. He let himself fall backwards, thus slipped through the loop behind him and then hung on one chain with the back of his knees. He searched out one of the hatchlings, let go of the chain and darted down like a hawk, only to reappear in the air with a Nadder-hatchling in his arms a second later. Said hatchling calmed and nuzzled his chest. He dove down again and picked up a second hatchling, which calmed and did the same as the first. He landed in front of the adult Nadder and chuckled when the hatchlings licked his chin before jumping down and running to their parents.   
He collected the other hatchlings as well (10 in total) and by the time he handed over the last one, the crowd was calm as well. Hiccup tried to ignore the stares as they watched, he had some seriously scared parents to handle right in front of him. They checked their little ones frantically, except for one. A male one, apparently. He flapped his wings and stepped in front of Hiccup, noticeably between him and the female dragons. He was obviously stressed to be surrounded by so many humans. Hiccup stroked the leader of the little flock gently on the snout and felt his vibes get calmer.   
Hiccup suppressed his nervousness so he wouldn´t upset the dragons further and transformed a bit more. Just a tad, so that some of his scales came out and his pupils went to slits. His nails grew and changed their color on the ends into a dark tone already, but he decided this was enough. The dragon would understand him now. “Hey, you´re not from here are you?” he got a negative answer. “Are you just passing by? Or do you want to… to visit someone?” the answer he got was longer this time. The dragon explained they were in fact just passing by, but the flight was too long for the hatchlings and suddenly they slumped down. They landed in this mass of humans and then the humans began to panic. Hiccup felt little blunt teeth nibbling at his ankles and stroked the hatchling´s heads with the tips of his wings so that he could continue his talk with the male Nadder. “I´m sorry for the trouble, those humans are rather frightened of you, they aren´t used to be around dragons on a friendly basis. If you come by later we´re way fewer and it´s much more relaxed. I´m glad nothing happened to the little ones.” Hiccup tried with a smile. The Nadder agreed and told him that they would take off now. He said that they would maybe come back, but surely not in the near future. Hiccup nodded and led them out of the arena before watching them fly off.

He turned though, when he heard whispering behind him. While turning around slowly he let his wings disappear and lifted both his brows. Most of the visitors were minding their own business and did whatever they usually did in the morning, but a rather big group stood at the entry of the arena and watched him suspiciously. “What?” he asked confused. What was their problem? “What did you say to the dragons?” someone he couldn´t see demanded.   
For a moment the wondering thought why these oh so brave and adult men were so cowardly and never showed themselves when demanding answers, but it disappeared quickly. He tilted his head to the side. “I just asked why they were here, excused for the trouble and said they´re welcome for later when things settled down.” He explained, but obviously his answer wasn´t that pleasing to the little group. “Why did you have to excuse yourself? They were the ones that caused the trouble!” it was a woman this time and he could even see her. He pulled his brows together. “I didn´t excuse myself.” And he didn´t think before the next words left his mouth. “I excused your behavior, since you overreacted because some hatchlings tumbled into the crowd. You pushed them around and their parents were worried. An apology was simply appropriate. ” he reasoned. “What? We didn´t overreact! They tried to bite and scratch us!” Hiccup crossed his arms over his chest and huffed. This was getting annoying, since their arguments didn´t make sense at all.   
“First of all: is anyone seriously hurt? I don´t think so, since hatchlings´ claws and teeth are still somewhat soft and really blunt. They couldn´t have seriously hurt you. And secondly: they simply fell down because they were exhausted, nothing more, they didn’t do anything, but you acted as if they would be attacking adults. Those hatchlings were as little as Terrible Terrors when they are full grown and way more harmless.” Hiccup lifted his chin slightly, because his arguments were unbeatable. The group was silent. After some seconds, he wondered what they were staring at and turned around, only to see his father standing in front of him.

He didn´t look happy.

 He glared down at his son for a moment before looking at the crowd. Hiccup heard some gasps. “I apologize for the trouble so early in the morning. Please inform your chief that we will hold the council when the horn is blown.” Hiccup knew he held his anger back, he knew his father wasn´t sorry, and something in him stirred at the thought that he gave in nevertheless, even though he knew it was wrong. _They_ were wrong. They we **r _e_** a _l_ ** _w_** ** _a_** **y** s w ** _ro_** n ** _g_**.

Hiccup blinked confused – what was that? He blinked again in confusion, but let if fall, since it was gone already.

_If Stoick had been a little bit more attentive, then he would have felt it at that moment. He would´ve felt the quick rising of madness from his son that radiated around him before it died down, he would have seen that in the short moment a mask of pure hatred took over his face and he would´ve felt it. He could´ve read the signs and foretell what was near and about to happen. But he didn´t._

Stoick turned to his son, put a bulky hand on his shoulder and dragged him along. “Hiccup, what was that just now?” he grumbled. Hiccup was a tad confused, but then he understood what his father was playing at. “They were wrong and I told them why. I told them what they did wrong.” Hiccup clarified.

_Stoick would´ve heard it, the fury, the ice-cold fury. A fury so more dangerous than a white and hot one._

Stoick stopped his son and turned him further to him. “Listen Hiccup, just two more days. Not even – just today and a few hours tomorrow – then they´re gone and the stress I know they cause for you with them – _but keep. It. Together.”,_ Stoick gave Hiccups shoulders a squeeze, “You know the consequences, this goes over my saying. Remember this and stay. Calm.” He lectured more than anything else. The thick-headed part of Hiccup (that unexceptionally everyone amongst them had) took control of his mouth. “But they were _wrong_.”  
Stoick looked like it was hard not to shout. “ _I know_.” He said instead in a calm and compassionate voice. His gaze softened. “I _know_. And you know that we both can´t stand it. But we have to endure. Just one more day.” Hiccup´s gaze dropped to the ground long ago. He felt two hands on his shoulders. “Hiccup, if they banish the dragons, they banish you. And we both don´t want to loose what´s left of our family. So just one more day, yes? You can do this.” He patted him and even though Hiccup left his head hanging, he nodded.   
                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The rest of the day wasn´t any better at all.

 

That day, Hiccup got all kinds of looks.

There were _happy_ and _friendly_ looks, from his friends, villagers or some visitors that already learned to love dragons without needing someone to shove it into their face that dragons were actually loveable creatures.

  
There were _frightened_ looks and Hiccup really couldn´t be mad at them for it – but it made him feel a tad guilty and most of all annoyed. Yes, he was strong, yes, he had power – but it wasn´t like he would explode any second if someone just so much as breathed wrong into his direction.

  
There were _respectful_ looks. Villagers mostly, but also some visitors who knew how to behave when being a guest. They respected Hiccup and the dragons the way they deserved it and he gladly showed respect in return.

And then there were the looks of people that tried to _stab_ him with them. They were full of hate, of disgust and distrust. They saw in him nothing than a monster, he knew it and he _hated it_. Unnoticeable to him, this dark thing in him, that one thing that caused all his trouble, fed off of them. The dark thoughts and emotions were what it feasted on, what made it grow and become strong again.

Hiccup didn´t notice how his steps got more aggressive the stronger it got. He didn´t notice a constant glare return to his face the more it feasted. He didn´t notice the hate boiling in his subconscious the more it grew. But when he noticed, his reaction made it only worse. He feared these dark thoughts, he feared his madness, he feared that his body could get out of his control again, that he could forget himself. That he could hurt someone, _kill_ someone.

But then his attention shifted to something more important. Said something were screams – screams of terror, fear and just plain panic. And amongst them was a single roaring, which dripped with pain and some rage as well. And he knew this roar, he knew this mix of emotions, he knew what was going on and _he really didn´t need that right now_.

In under a second, his wings were out and he had taken off to rush to the other side of the village where the trouble was. He arrived at the scene he expected and simultaneously feared to actually happen.   
There was Hookfang, her body already in flames, but they quickly disappeared when she remembered that she was told to not use them. Around her was a large group of angry Vikings who were determined to take the suddenly raging dragon down. He saw a glimpse of the other teens running to the scene as well, but he was quicker than them and flew over them without taking extra care of flying high enough so not to cause a strong wind on the ground.   
He had to act quickly, very quickly, before the situation would escalate, because even though Hookfang, as well as the other dragons, was very loyal to him and wanted to obey him - if she was hurt, then she would switch to attack-mode and Hiccup really didn´t want to see how the other Vikings would stop her.   
He was just mere meters away, when he saw one man lift a long spear and gasped. The man let the spear come down, but it missed the dragon by an inch, because Hiccup had been fast enough to rush through the crowd, snatch the spear and rip it out of the man´s hand. Sadly, he had too much speed left and he had curled around the spear, so he more crashed than landed into the ground and rolled a few times, which really hurt. He felt little stones dig into the soft leathery skin of his wings and ow ow ow - that _hurt_.

Though, he was quick to stand up, throw the spear to the ground and step between human and dragon with his arms spread out wide. His front faced Hookfang, which looked up to him when he used his wings to shield her from the looks and, at the same time,  the crowd from landing in the seeing-range of a raging dragon. His arms were lifted and his feet firm on the ground. “Heyheyhey, stop, Hookfang!” he tried, but the dragon wouldn´t listen.   
“GOBBER!” Hiccup shouted and transformed a bit more before grabbing the snout of Hookfang and holding it shut. He heard his limping friend answer him, but he was too far away, he would have to hold the dragon in one place a bit longer. Why did he need Gobber you ask? Simple: Hookfang had a bad tooth. And when a dragon like Hookfang had a bad tooth, then she was unpredictable for the moment. Hiccup was lifted off the ground, but he still had his arms around Hookfang´s snout in a firm grip so she couldn´t spit fire for now or bite someone. “Hookfang! CALM DOWN!” he tried again, but it was like she went deaf.

“ **H̡̢O̕O͝͞Ḱ͡F҉͜ĄN̶͝G̡!** ” he used his authority and heard people around him gasp from the inhuman tone his voice had. Hookfang froze in place and stared at him. He felt it. He felt her fear, her fear of him being mad at her, of him banning her from his flock, his family. Hiccup didn´t like to use this voice. He didn´t like to take advantage of his position, but he had to right now. He couldn´t let her snap. Not now.

_Just one more day._

Slowly, the dragon bent its neck and let its leader to the ground, where he retreated his wings. He still felt her pain radiate off of her in uneasy waves and phantom-pain itched through his jaw. “ **O̷pe͢n͞ yo̧u̕r҉ m̧o͢u̴t͟h̨ g̛i͢r̸l**.̕” She obeyed. Slowly and hesitantly, but at the time it was opened, Gobber arrived at his side, his pincers were already equipped. He took a quick look and ripped the bad tooth out as soon as he located it. It was beginning to turn black and had a hole in it and Hiccup would have to lecture Snotlout later for not taking care of his dragon´s teeth, which were one of the dragon´s most important body parts, and thus endangering everyone and wow, he was getting really mad right now.   
The whole panic had made Hiccup go deaf, but now that Hookfang was calm again, it was as if he would emerge from under water and he heard all the complains, the mad comments and shouts the visitors threw at them. “I´m sorry, but she had a bad tooth and a dragons teeth are very-“

“Lies! It wanted to kill us!”

“No, really, she was just in pain, look at the tooth it´s already turning black and-“ Hiccup saw the other teens arrive at the scene and they began to argue with some visitors as well, tried to explain, but the main focus of the crowd was on Hiccup, who stood in the center of a somewhat circle. The people stepped closer and closer, but only slowly. Hiccup stepped backwards, as did Hookfang.

“You´re just making excuses! It is dangerous and should be banned!”

“Why don´t you listen? It wasn´t her fault!” _Just one more day **, just one more day**._

“Of course it was its fault! It´s a monster!”

Hiccup tried to stay calm, he tried. He told himself it was just one more day. Just _one more day_. But that was it. He had said it.

“SHE´S NOT A MONSTER!” he yelled back and took a stronger stance where he was bent forward.

“IT IS A MONSTER! A DANGEROUS ONE! IT SHOULD BE BANNED, THEY ALL SHOULD BE BANNED!”

“NO SHE ISN`T, SHE WAS JUST IN PA-“

“YOU ARE LYING! YOU ARE JUST ONE OF THEM! YOU ARE JUST A MONSTER!”

Hiccup was suddenly quiet. He took one final breath but that was it.

A low growl mixed in when he breathed out.

 “Hiccup” was _gone_.

They want a mo _N_ s **tE _r_**? **_T_** **H** _ey´ **D**_ g **e** _T_ _O_ ** _N_** ** _e_**.


	14. They Said It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiccup snaps and the gang has to take action.

Seconds later, the teens were ripped abruptly out of their arguments when it got very hot very suddenly. Astrid would´ve been burnt to ash if not for that one Viking that tackled her out of the way. When she looked up, a familiar face was inches away from hers – she´d just argued with that guy. A man, around her age. And when she turned her head around, she saw her biggest nightmare, a Hiccup that got out of control.   
The man stared with rage and disgust at Hiccup and Astrid really wanted to punch him. Okay, it was comprehensible. He helped her up without letting Hiccup out of sight, who stood on all four “feet” now, crouched and hissed and glared at the crowd with bared teeth after his first burst of fire. He looked disgusted at him. “What is it now? What is that thing?!” he asked and Astrid suppressed the urge to punch him _really_ hard. “The chiefs son, to be exactly.” Astrid hissed with as much venom in her voice as possible. Who did he think he was? Hiccup wasn´t some… some piece of dirt! He should stop looking at him like that.   
The young man turned his head abruptly to actually look at her. His questioning gaze spoke associations. “THAT is the son of the chief? The half-dragon?” he asked disbelieving. Where was that guy even coming from? Had he not seen Hiccup until now? Or was he just dumb?! “No, it´s an overgrown Terrible Terror.” Astrid rolled with her eyes so hard it hurt. “OF COURSE HE IS THE HALF-DRAGON – WHAT ELSE? Ugh, I don´t have time for this now.” She turned on her heals and with a swift motion of her arm she mentioned for the other riders to follow her.   
They had a hard time staying in a group though, because the Vikings were running now, fright and panic twisted their faces. Surprisingly, Astrid and the riders stayed relatively calm. They knew what they had to do. They had planned it out and went through it several times, the words of their chief still heavy in their heads. Astrid shoved her feelings down, she had more important things to worry about right now – for example finding their dragons, because not only were the people panicking, but the dragons as well.

When they found their dragons, they found them all at once. They stood in a somewhat circle and seemed more than nervous. Quickly each rider got to his dragon and calmed it down as much as possible. It wasn´t that easy with those roars of Hiccup in the background. He ran around on the ground and destroyed at least four houses by running into them or slashing them or how-ever. One was burned down. His claws bored holes into the rocks of the plaza. The teens went through their plan again and afterwards placed themselves on their dragons. They had to act quickly now. Only Astrid didn´t yet, instead she went the two steps to Toothless and kneeled down in front of him. “Okay Toothless, you know we all still like Hiccup okay? What we´re gonna do is for his best, so you can´t interfere. Just trust us okay?” she nearly couldn´t stand his burning gaze and when she was about to look away, Toothless closed his eyes and nodded to her dragon with his hanging head. He understood, he knew it had to be done. “We will get him back, I promise.” She whispered and, seconds later, she sat in her saddle. “Okay, let´s do this! Hold onto the plan, no matter what!” and thus they took off.

Finding Hiccup wasn´t that hard. He was big and flew circles over the plaza now, gladly not as high as he did the last time. Actually, it weren´t even 50 meters. The riders saw that the other Hooligans already evacuated and that they dragged the visitors with them. Okay, free space, they could begin. Surprisingly, it went like last time. When the riders neared, Hiccup stopped his circles and flew at one place. He glared with hostility and disgust at the dragons and humans, but didn´t do anything else.

_I´m so sorry Hiccup…_

“NOW!” they all nudged their dragons with their knees and from one to another second the space in their circle was filled unexceptionally with fire.

Hiccup´s instincts, which seemed to be his only source of action, told him that there was danger. They _told_ him to fly away or spit fire first. To erase the enemies. It was like last time.

This time, though, something was different. There was a little bit of rational mind left in him. It panicked, was confused and scared to death, yes, but it was there. It recognized those faces – it knew these humans wouldn´t harm him. It knew, somehow, these dragons wouldn´t try to hurt him. It knew those dragons were loved ones. It made his body hold still. It didn´t want to harm anyone. The other force, which he thought were his dragon-instincts, were so much bigger and aggressive, it scared him even more and made him shiver in his dark corner and pull at his hair. He curled into a ball and cried, cried from anxiety and desperation. It wanted to stop, it wanted to fly peacefully, it wanted to laugh with the others and it wanted to be hugged. It wanted to stroke those smooth and warm scales, it wanted to curl up amongst dark wings and it wanted to be held by powerful but oh so careful scaly legs. It wanted to be happy.

But then it was filled with pain. His whole body began to hurt and he understood. He saw that those dragons and humans, whom he thought to be friendly, hurt him on purpose. They tried to burn him. The pain was getting worse and the bigger, scary and raging part of his mind cried, screamed and trashed around, it wanted to fight back, burn those unworthy beings to ash and it wanted to burn down everything. It kicked and hit the little, scared part of his rational mind that was tortured more and more, it screamed at it and made it scream and squirm in pain. But the little part didn´t give up. It fought to remain where it was. It knew that it had to stay, somehow, for some unknown reasons – it wouldn´t be good if it left, no matter what the bigger, now furious, part wanted and did.

Then it all turned black. There was nothing left, no images, no sounds and no feelings. Nothing.

The bigger part was gone, so was the littler part, the space was empty.

 

It worked. There was a deafening roar at first, when the fire started, before it changed into a scream that was filled with too much gurgling pain – it could´ve molt stones. The riders and dragons felt their insides vibrate physically and break mentally. The body within all the fire squirmed and struggled, looked like it wanted to escape but at the same time not. As if it would fight with itself, which made the whole thing even harder. The strong flaps of wings got more and more sluggish and uncoordinated. The scream turned into a heartbreaking cry that ended in a strangled gurgle. When even that stopped, the body went limp and started to fall to the ground.   
Immediately the dragons stopped the fire and went after their leader. He fell to the ground too fast; leaving trails of smoke in the air he passed. Hookfang, with her strong wings, was nearest to Hiccup but still not fast enough. His limb body crashed into the ground with such force, he made a crater.

Dusk and dirt were whirled up and formed a thick cloud that hid the scene. The riders got to the ground safely and saw Toothless rushing into the cloud that began to dissolve already. When it was gone fully, and no movement happened, the teens got from their dragons and after they shooed their dragons away (because they got nervous and seemed troubled) they climbed down the rather large crater. In its center, they found a not moving Hiccup – and a lot of blood splattered on the ground around him. Astrid heard Snotlout suppressing the urge to vomit and a second later, the scent hit her nose as well. It was a terrible scent of burnt skin and blood, only that it smelled like rotten blood. She stopped dead in her tracks for a second – _why did the blood smell rotten?_

The remaining fog of dusk was blown away by powerful black wings and they finally saw Hiccup, because even Toothless backed off startled. They did expect many things – but not _that_. Hiccup transformed back really quickly, but he laid there shivering, sneezing and caked in dirt and his own blood that oozed out from too many cuts to count. His wounds closed sizzling and smoke emitting, but when he was fully human, his scales came out again. Then they disappeared and reappeared again. Again and again and eventually Hiccup began to cry, scream and squirm stiffly in pain, but it seemed like he wasn´t awake. The teens were too shocked to do anything, the scene was too overwhelming, they could just stand there and not avert their gaze. When Hiccup rolled onto his stomach, Snotlout eventually turned away and vomited, because Hiccups back was an open mess. Hints of wings were sticking out of open flesh. Scales ended and showed muscles, muscles ended and bones were the ends of what they saw. Random other bones stuck out in wrong places and wrong shapes, there were too much blood and ripped muscles. Some bones looked broken, others like horns or rips that were bent into the wrong direction. It would´ve been bad enough as it was, but the truly horrifying part was, that it all moved. They saw the muscles try to bond and rip again, they saw the bones disappear in his body and break through his flesh, bring even more blood with them. They saw that the wings were coming out while trying to disappear at the same time, they twitched and scales disappeared and reappeared in random places. The blood pooled around him and it was dark, way too dark. Eventually it was too much for Astrid and she vomited as well, even fell to her knees and hands. Tears streamed down her face and she couldn´t look back, couldn´t do anything. These pictures would haunt her in her nightmares, she knew it already. She saw the blurred image of her trembling hands. The screams and cries were just giving them the rest as they burned themselves into their heads and echoed in their skulls. Every Viking that heard them got goose bumps and eventually they stopped abruptly. Ruffnut heard Fishlegs moan quietly before he passed out and fell to the ground. Hiccup´s outstretched arms and his head fell limply to the ground and didn´t move an inch anymore. The twins, which stared at him the whole time, were the only ones still watching and for a second they weren´t sure if he still breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter introduces a "new" character some of you might now. And some of you might want to hit me for the change I had to make.


	15. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg, what am I even doing to these poor people
> 
> warning: a lot of view-switching in here, but when the feelings call, I answer
> 
> trigger-warning: sickness, weakness, fever, coughing, literal burning, vomiting, sadness?

The wind played with her long, slightly dirty, blond hair. She sat at the head of the ship – literally. The figure at the front had a big and sturdy head with just enough space that she could sit there cross-legged and suck in the pure and salty air of the sea. Right now however, she was nervous and a bit frightened – though she would never ever let it show.   
The island of Berk was in sight for a while now and it wouldn´t take minutes until they reached it – but her excitement was dimmed when she watched what was going on in the air just above the village. She saw a big, winged being, which should be a dragon, but when she looked through her telescope she saw that it was human-shaped – except for the wings of course. Then, seconds later, she saw other dragons fly up to the first uh… _thing_. They all had riders on their backs. There was a Deadly Nadder, a Hideous Zippleback, a Gronckle and a Monstrous Nightmare.   
She watched through her telescope how the four dragons flew in a circle around the bigger dragon. She was sure it was a dragon, it had to be. Then, suddenly, the dragon in the middle was engulfed by fire the other four spit at him. She gasped in shock and pressed the telescope so tight to her eye it began to hurt. She nearly fell off the head when she leaned forward subconsciously.   
She heard them, heard the screams, the horrible, terribly pained screams and cries from the one in the middle. She watched the dragon from the middle fall down limply – he left little traces of smoke in the air. The riders followed him quickly and it looked like they wanted to catch him – but it was too late, obviously, because there was a cloud of dirt and dusk before the Monstrous Nightmare, the dragon that was closest to the falling dragon, landed after the cloud appeared. She put down her telescope, because she even _heard_ the crash. She gasped again, out of surprise this time, because the ship suddenly halted and she nearly fell off forward. Quickly, she jumped to her feet and looked around, until she saw her mother. “I´m off mother!” she shouted and waved before jumping onto a near cliff and climbing up the rest to get to the wide plateau the actual village was built on.   
Her pace quickened when she heard the pained screams and cries, of a human this time, a voice she barely registered at first. When she finally arrived at the scene, it was the same moment the noise stopped.   
She saw two vomiting Vikings in around her age, one that seemed to be unconscious and two that stared at something. She got closer and saw what they were looking at. It was the most horrible thing she ever saw and she´d seen so many, many things. And the worst part – it was her best friend. 

 

Astrid´s head shot up when she heard an unfamiliar voice. “H-Hiccup…?” it asked bristle and soon there were footsteps and sliding sounds. Someone entered the crater. Astrid saw a young girl, maybe around their age with long blond hair. She wore strange clothing, it wasn´t warrior-themed like Astrids was. She was also thin and actually very little. The horror-filled expression distorted her actually pretty face. She had her hands lifted uselessly and stared at Hiccup. Astrid´s gaze flicked to him again and she had to suppress more vomit immediately. The girl began to tremble and she shook her head disbelievingly. “N-no… that… that can´t be him… he can´t… he _can´t_ …” her voice cracked and Astrid was sure she was about to cry.   
Astrid had no idea who that girl was, she had never seen her, and Hiccup hadn´t talked about knowing a blond girl. Astrid was sure she hasn´t seen her around the last days either. And because she didn´t know the girl, she didn´t expect her next reaction.  
The girl didn´t cry, she didn´t weep or break down. She was quiet and had a determined face. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath through her nose. She walked over to the limp body with quick but not exactly rushed steps. Astrid felt the sickening knot in her stomach tighten when the girl´s bare feet made splashing sounds in the pool of blood around Hiccup. What Astrid didn´t see was that the dark blood wasn´t oozing out of him anymore, it had its normal color back and soaked the ground nearest to him.   
The girl kneeled down and felt for a pulse. She found one, but it was quick, unsteady and weak. She looked around – two teenagers on their hands and knees vomiting, two in shock and one unconscious – all useless for the moment. When she looked up, though, she saw the black dragon. She knew this dragon, she had seen pictures of him, pictures Hiccup had drawn and send her in his messages. “You, dragon, uh – Toothless! Help me with this. He needs treatment, quickly.” The dragon stared at her, scanned her and sniffed. He felt her concern, but also her determination to help, so he obeyed.

 

It was sickening feeling to carry his limp human on his back. It was even worse when he felt the blood slowly run down over his scales. But that human girl was right. Toothless felt the waves and presence of his human weaken. The girl helped him to carry his human out of the crater, she took care that he wouldn´t slip from his back. She was quick to see the little female human who was good at helping injured people – she helped his human before, with his leg, and when he was hurt after their escape.

 

 

 

When Stoick slammed the door open, he stopped at the scene in front of him and gasped. He felt his heartbeat drum in every inch of his body, heard the blood rush in his ears and a slight tremor was shaking his hands.   
He knew it was his fault.   
He told the kids to stop his son if he lost it.   
But Hiccup had scales, scales that would prevent any mature injuries through fire. Hiccup was good at transforming, it should have gone smoothly as soon as he went unconscious. And he was strong, so, _so_ strong, he wouldn´t just give up and die – but still his heart ached and his stomach dropped when he saw his son lying in the bed, covered in bandages. He sneezed, his whole body shook from trembling uncontrollably, he coughed and the cool piece of cloth wouldn´t be there if he wouldn´t have a fever – and he was so… so _pale_. Yes, his son had never had a sun-kissed skin, his freckles were always the darkest part of him and Stoick sometimes made a joke that he was whiter than their milk – but never had he been pale enough so that the white cloth on his head seemed dirty. His freckles stood out even more and Stoick was sure that, after sitting down slowly next to his bed, he saw a hint of blue on his lips. Dark circles were under his half-closed eyes. He didn´t seem to be awake… Stoick took one of the hands that was so small in comparison to his own. There was no resistance, just the ever twitching muscles and the slight shaking. They were so cold, not as warm as they´d been constantly since the transforming started, and even though his skin was calloused from the work in the smithy, they seemed so soft and breakable now, as if they would crumble like dry leaves if he so much as looked at them. Of course they didn´t break, but they also didn´t return the gesture when he squeezed it a little bit tighter. Weak, so _weak_.   
An image flashed through his head, just for a mere second. The image of a tiny baby, so weak and barely breathing. He doubted it would live through the first winter – but it did. He had been wrong, his son wasn´t weak. He was strong and a fighter. And yet here he was, barely clinging onto life by the looks of it.

Suddenly the loose hand in his pranks gripped them in a death-grip tight enough that he felt his bones being pressed against each other. Hiccup gritted his teeth and breather heavily, then he began to bent back which lifted his back from the bed he was lying on. Heavy twitches shook his body all at once. Stoick didn´t know what to do, he panicked and looked around frantically, when seemingly out of nowhere a well familiar black foreleg appeared and pressed down on Hiccup´s chest. He was pushed down and went limp again, before tremors jerked through his body with the force as little as it had been before, then his breathing evened out (as far as >even< could be used when he coughed again and again, each time with a sound as if he would spit blood at any moment). When Stoick settled back to his seat (he didn´t notice he stood up) he looked over Hiccup and saw the sad look of Toothless, which slowly took his leg back. They stared at each other, then Toothless stared at Hiccup, whined miserably and let his head slump back down to the frame of the bed. He blended into the shadow so perfectly Stoick wasn´t surprised anymore that he didn´t notice the dragon before. Now that he observed him, he saw one of his ears twitch every now and then, as if picking up a sound. He was so quiet, he couldn´t even hear the breathing, which was usually a heavy puff.

Stoick didn´t know how long he sat there, stared at his son and held his hand in his own two while hoping to get any sign of recognition from them. Every now and then, Hiccup wouldn´t cough anymore, but he would mumble what weren´t words, though to Toothless they seemingly were, because his ears perked up every time and he looked concentrated. He would cramp again and again, sometimes stop breathing with a strangled sound or close his eyes as if to blink and not open them for seconds that were minutes to Stoick, before they opened again to reveal a glazed and empty stare that was directing at nothing. No, Stoick lost every feeling of time. He didn´t notice his back ache from the bent-over posture he had, he didn´t notice the tears that streamed down his face and disappeared into his beard from time to time and he didn´t notice that his fingers were as cold as the ones he was holding. He didn´t notice someone sneak in from the rooftop.  
He only returned to the world around him, when the door to the room slowly and softly creaked open. He didn´t look up, didn´t even move at all, but breathed out when he heard the familiar clank of a wooden leg. “Stoick… the chiefs are making a decision. They want to speak with you.” Stoick felt a hand on his shoulder. He couldn´t just _go_ now only to hear what he knew he would be hearing already. He couldn´t just _leave_ his son like this. He lost a loved one before, he was never able to say goodbye, and… and if this was one of his sons last moments, he wanted to be there. He couldn´t just miss this.   
Other steps were heard and then scratching on the ground. “She says… _the kids told me. Dragon-fever. It´s rare for humans to catch and he lasted this long only because he is what he is, it caused the freak-outs._ “, Stoick felt himself twitch at that. There was more scratching. “ _According to my knowledge and the stars, he has three more days. That´s when the dragons die after the real fever started. Now go talk to the other chiefs to prevent a catastrophe you stupid giant man._ ”, Stoick didn´t want to move. Still, he was a chief. That meant responsibility. That meant being strong when others needed him to be, no matter what he felt on the inside. That meant putting the well of the village above his own, above that of a single villager. He knew that. _He knew that_.

 

Toothless did understand what the father of his human had to do, he did understand that he had to go but didn´t want to. He purred to get the man´s attention and when he had it, he nodded towards the door. Stoick looked at him and nodded. “Have an eye on him until I´m back.” Toothless nodded again, this time in affirmation. Of course he would. He _always_ would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, do you know who the blond girl is gonna be already?


	16. The Decision

When Stoick entered the great hall, there was an argument and the chiefs, together with their men and women, stood on two sites. Literally. The moment he stepped in, the argument died down and all eyes were on him. Calmly, he went to his place at the head of the hall before he turned to the mass.

“Stoick! We want the dragons to be banned, for good!” One man on Stoick´s left said.

“No, WE say they should stay. We didn´t trust them ourselves until we came to Berk. We saw they can be trusted friends. And parts of families. We don´t want to fight them any longer. We don´t want to shed blood that doesn´t have to be shed.” Someone on the right side declared.

“Trust? You can´t _trust_ these creatures! Have you forgotten that they killed hundreds of us? How can you be a friend of a murderer?!” the man on the left shouted.

“For once: you CAN trust them, if you try and have good intentions. And secondly: I wasn´t thrilled of the idea of dragons as friends at the beginning either.” Stoick said now, but he was much calmer than the man on the left, “I would´ve never let them into my village. But my mind was opened. I had the same opinion: how can we trust creatures that killed us for their own good? I thought the idea was insane. But do you know what my son once told me, when I said the exact same thing? He said to me: and _we_ killed _thousands_ of _them_.” Stoick paused for a second there. “I didn´t listen to those words at first and almost lost him. But he was right. We can´t hate them for murder, because we murdered as well. Think about it: how many dragons have you killed? To protect your own? They don´t do anything else, except standing on the other side. For them we were the threat. That´s why we should start and make a step at peace, because the dragons won´t. They will however step along if we do.” He waited for a reaction.

“You say we can trust them. You say they won´t hurt us, if we don´t fight. But what would you say, if your son wasn´t one of those creatures? The Stoick I know hated them with all his might and popped off heads while walking by. Would you have ever trusted a dragon, if a dragon didn´t tell you to?” the man from the left side said as he stepped towards Stoick.

“No. I wouldn´t have. But the Stoick of the past was wrong. Back then I didn´t know that dragons have a heart and are smart creatures. They just react to us, and if I would´ve tried to approach a dragon gently, with good intentions, it would have never hurt me, not even on the battle field. After all – even the mighty Night Fury is a big softie, if you just scratch him a bit. Dragons aren´t what we thought they are.” The right side cheered at that. The left side still wasn´t convinced. Stoick made a step down. “All the time, while you were here, tell me, what did the dragons do to you? None bit you and none burned you.”

“Maybe they didn´t harm me, but where-ever I went, I got glares full of hate. Because they felt it, they felt that I know they can´t be trusted.”

“Exactly. They felt distrust and answered with distrust. What about you?” he turned to the right side. A woman stepped forward and – ah. _That_ woman. “As you can see, I´m no chief.” She turned to the others and spoke up “And I´m no warrior.” The Terrible Terror on her shoulder purred. “And I was scared of dragons. But when I approached them with respect, they turned out to be nothing else than… scaly and spikey cats. This little guy here even helped me when I was carrying something and it nearly fell to the ground, even though it took all of his strength.”

“Ha! I have seen your first encounter. It´s because you were with that _boy_. He told the dragons to be nice around us, so that we trust them, and when we think we´re safe, they will turn on us, because they only really listen to him!” the men and women that were with him roared their approval to this, until a booming laughter interrupted them. They stopped and looked towards the source.   
Still laughing, though quieter now, a woman came forward. She was big and round and she could pop off heads with her giant breasts. She had a little beard on her chin and her clothes weren´t exactly armored but dark and a bit dirty. The chief of the Bog-Burglars. A tribe only with women, though it wasn´t always that obvious if it really were women. “I´ve only been here a day and was already convinced that the intentions of the dragons of Berk are pure.”

“How would _you_ know? Besides, you are a tribe of thieves, why should we trust you?”

“Oh, that´s easy to answer.” She whistled loudly and shortly, then, a dragon came flying in. It was golden and long, like a snake. It landed on her shoulders and looked arrogant.

“We´ve been training these little guys for a while now. But this one here is the best of them.”

“Right. I ssspoke with the dragonss of thiss is-“ the dragon began to speak in perfect Norse, though the hiss was still there.

“Why is it talking?! What trick is that?!”

The golden dragon looked offended and glared at the human and crouched down as if preparing to pounce on him. “It´sssss rude to interrupt a lady.” She hissed at him before she went back to her arrogant posture. “Asss I wass about to sssay, I ssspoke to the dragonss of thiss island and obssserved them. Their intentionss are pure and they can be trusssted. Even more, than sssome humanss in chere.” She said and again glared at the man. He was outraged. “WHAT?! How DARE you?!”

“Oh, I can sssay that! I´ve SSSEEN you talk to ssstrangerss! _Ssstrangerss_ that aren´t welcome here! _Banned_ ssstrangerss. You made a deal! I sssaw them chand you gold!” the little dragon hissed and suddenly the hall was silent. “You said the dragons couldn´t be trusted! Maybe it´s you who can´t be trusted!” a woman from the left side shouted and went over to the right. Others followed her. “We don´t believe you and your lies anymore.” She threw back to him.

Someone from the right side stepped forward; he was fairly old by now. He turned directly to Stoick.

“Stoick, I don´t want to ban the dragons, but I´m also worried. I spoke with your son this week, I like him, he´s smart and surely would make a good chief in the future. And no matter how much I don´t like this man´s arguments, he´s right in one point: _the dragons will follow your son._ I´ll say it again, I really like him, his intentions are good, but if he can´t control himself, he might harm someone. He might lose himself and the dragons will follow him. I´m worried Stoick, about him and our villages.” Stoick knew they would bring this up. “I apologize for the trouble my son caused, but I am sure this won´t happen again. I was informed he has a rare disease that´s even rarer for a human to catch. This disease causes the strange behavior.”

“Can he be cured?”

Stoick hesitated. His insides ached at his next words. “I don´t know.”

“Then… if he can´t… I´m afraid we will have to send him off.”

“If he can´t, he will die. Soon.” said Stoick sharply and was met with some gasps. There was silence again, until the old chief stepped up to Stoick and turned to the mass as well.

“I think we should vote now. Those, who trust the dragons, want them to stay and make peace with them at their own home: lift your hand.” All members on the right side lifted their hands, some on the left as well, though a bit hesitantly. Only a few didn´t agree. “Good. Then the decision is made.”

Stoick stepped forward. “If…” he stopped for a moment. “If there are any chiefs who want to consult help from us with their dragons at home, they can speak to me tomorrow. We will do what we can to help you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment with a peace of your mind?  
> Also, if you find any errors, it would be nice if you reported them.
> 
> Always get informed about updates and everything else here: http://otaku-marijane.tumblr.com/ (main fun-blog)  
> here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/marijane-akuma (art-only blog)  
> and here: https://twitter.com/MarijaneXD
> 
> aaaaand, if ya wanna have a discussion/have questions/have prompts/anything else, go here: http://marijane-akuma-works.tumblr.com


	17. A New Friend?

Astrid had been the first one to pull herself together after Hiccup had been dragged out of the crater. She helped Snotlout first and then shook the twins back into reality, before all four of them dragged Fishlegs out.

When the gentle giant of the group woke up, he was in the arena and lied on the ground. The other riders and all their dragons sat on the ground as well, all scattered around and silent. When he sat up, the memories crashed in on him and he gasped and looked around for Hiccup, but, of course, he didn´t find him. Who he _did_ find however, was a very sad Meatlug that began to cuddle with him. He patted her and saw that the other teens were cuddling with their dragons as well. Yes, even Snotlout. When he saw the depression on both, human and dragon faces, it dawned on him. _The fever._ It was the fever, after all. Hiccup was going to _die_.

It was silent for a while.

“So.” Ruffnut began. “That happened.” Her twin continued.

“It´s the dragon-killing-fever. The dragons were right.” Fishlegs continued. None really looked up. “He´s really not gonna make it, is he?” Snotlout asked.

“Not if you continue to sssit around jussst like that.” A female and silky but most of all unfamiliar voice said with a hiss. When the gang looked upwards in surprise, they saw a blond-haired girl in strange clothing sit on top of the chains and a golden, snake-like dragon on her shoulder that looked down at them arrogantly.   
Astrid was about to ask how the girl got there (without making a sound and thus staying unnoticed) but then she remembered her. “You!” she exclaimed instead and straightened up, ready to… well… to take action if needed.   
“Me!” the girl exclaimed back, let herself fall backwards, through the loop behind her and to the ground. Shock rushed through the riders, but the girl landed with a cat-like crouch and stood up without a problem. “And she is right, by the way.” The girl pointed with her thumb to the dragon that settled back on her shoulders. Astrid got to her feet, the others watched them curiously. “You were… _there_ , back then.” Astrid hesitated.

“Yeah, I was in the crater, then I brought Hic to a doctor.” The girl hesitated for a moment. “So he… has this fever yes? Windcutter* here asked the other dragons.” Astrid surveyed her quickly. Her clothes were dark and covered most of her skin, but it wasn´t thick or especially armored, it looked really light, actually. But there were straps and belts all around her, some with pockets, some with daggers and similar weapons, which included a sword next to a rope that hung loosely around her hip. She had golden ear-rings that hung like polished shells from her ears.

“You´re one of the Bog-Burglars.” Fishlegs noted. The girl looked over to him. “Yeah. I´m actually the heir, but to see what tribe I´m from isn´t such a big deal. Though, you´re a boy, I will give you some credit. But back to business.” Her head snapped back to Astrid and she showed her a stack of folded and neatly tied papers, some seemed to be smudged with charcoal.

Letters. Dozens of them.

“I´m… a friend of Hic and we wrote each other, so I know about you, your dragons and what´s going on on this island. In the last letters however, he talked about _something big_ , something I wouldn´t _believe_ and that he wanted to _show_ it to me, so that I _would_. I take it that he wanted to show me that he´s no human, isn´t that right?” Astrid nodded in affirmation, it was likely that Hiccup would want to actually show his friend rather than write it down. The girl nodded as well. “Thought so. Now, I guess we all want to help him and I know he doesn´t have that much time left.”

“How do you know? Gothi didn´t tell us yet.”

“Yeah, but I´m also a spy and I spied when the old lady told the news to Hic´s dad.” She rolled her eyes at that as if it was the most obvious thing in the world that she would get this information by spying.   
“And, lucky for us, we know a method that could actually help Hic. Now, don´t we, Windcutter?” the dragon looked even smugger than before. “Oh yesss we do. My grandma alwaysss told me: “One potato a day, keepss the fever away.” I never knew what ssssshe meant, but ssshe talked about the dragon-killing-fever, that´sss for sssure, whichssss isss, actually, called Vorpentitisss, but we can go withss fever.” The dragon hissed and at this point, none of the teens wondered how it was possible for a dragon to speak Norse - after all, they were learning to speak like dragons as well. “Yeah, and I know where we can probably get one of these “potatoes”, but it´s gonna be dangerous.”

Astrid crossed her arms and stood in her hip, but the hint of a smile was visible already. “We´re listening.”

The girl smiled. “Okay, so there´s this one tribe, the Hysterics. They didn´t believe that the earth is flat like a pancake, and their former chief Bigjob sailed to proof this. He came back and talked about a place called “America” and its people were called “feather-people”, for whatever reason. Anyway, he talked about strange fruits that came from under the earth, amongst other things: potatoes. AND it´s said he brought one back home with him as proof. His son, Norbert the Nutjob is the chief now and he´s a maniac. Also - I doubt they would give up their treasure, so we will have to steal it, since we don´t have time to sail to the other side of the, probably really, round earth.” Astrid smirked. “And aren´t we lucky that we have a thief on our side.” The girl returned the smirk. “And a fantastic one at that, if not the best.”

“Wait a minute.” Snotlout said and stood up with his hands raised. “How do we know you´re telling the truth?” the girl shrugged. “Well, you don´t.” Snotlout blinked confused. “It´s okay, you don´t have to understand that, it´s a bit complicated – for a boy. My name is Camicazi, by the way and… Hic´s my friend. I want to help him. You have no other choice than to trust me, because I know where their island is.”

 

\------------------------------------------

 

“And… you really think this is going to work?” Fishlegs asked over the wind, while they were flying into the direction Camicazi told them the island was. The girl itself sat on Stormfly behind Astrid. “Well, I hope so. I only know what´s said, not facts.” Snotlout prompted Hookfang to stop and the other riders stopped as well a bit later, obviously confused. Snotlout looked angry and shocked at the same time. “Does that mean we´re flying to an island full with insane people that are likely to kill us on sight, because there MIGHT be a CHANCE that there is one fruit SOMEWHERE on said island while we have no clue what the fruit even LOOKS like?!”

Astrid and Camicazi looked at each other. “Wasn´t that obvious?” Astrid asked back. Snotlout groaned.

“And why again didn´t we tell anyone where we were going? Or THAT we were going?” Fishlegs asked nervously. Camicazi rolled her eyes. “They wouldn´t have let us go if they knew where we are going.” 

 

\------------------------------------------------

 

“I knew this was a bad idea.” Snotlout grumbled through clenched teeth.

“Really? What makes you think that? The ropes, the cage or the fact that they are about to eat us?” replied Astrid sarcastically cheerful.

Ruffnut perked up. “Oh! Don´t tell me –uhmmm…”

Astrid let her head hang forward and stifled a groan.

Of all the people she could have been trapped with, why did it have to be idiots?

“Hey, where´s that crazy girl anyway?” asked Tuffnut. Ruffnut was still making thinking noises.

“She ran away. I knew we couldn´t trust her.” sneered Snotlout.

Here is what happened: as soon as they were in the air above the island, they got heavily attacked with nets, bolas and other trapping devices. There were too many and they came too fast, too suddenly, they eventually got all hit and fell.   
When the gang woke up, they were all tied up with ropes, sat in a metal cage in the middle of a hall and there were festivities all around them.   
They soon had to find out that the Hysterics were celebrating because they were about to have a huge meal. And as soon as the debate started whether the “food” should be thrown in the absurdly large boiler alive or dead they also knew what was about to happen to them.

Also, even though Astrid remembered that Camicazi was trapped in the net as well, the girl was nowhere to be seen.   
Fishlegs paled at Tuffnut´s suggestion that she had (maybe) been eaten already and hasn´t spoken since.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I KNOW her name is Stormfly, but I had to think of something, since I couldn´t let them both have the same name. So there. Windcutter. And no, I couldn´t think of something better.  
> But hey - let me hear what you think! It´s reviews that keep this thing going!


	18. Breakout

The Hysterics, so observed Camicazi, weren´t as bulky and muscle…-ly as the Hooligans or the Bog Burglars, they were rather thin – not as skinny as Hiccup of course (or as little), but strangely wiry. That only meant they had muscles too and even Camicazi had to admit that she probably wouldn´t stand a chance if she would have to confront one directly (if it wasn´t for her sword though, she was easily a better sword fighter than all these men – after all – they were _men_ ). She loomed in the dark, at the ceiling of the hall on one of the support beams.   
She had been lucky that she hasn´t been knocked out from the fall like her (temporary) comrades had and thus was able to escape, but now she would have to rescue them. Well, and find a potato of course. That shouldn´t be too hard though – there were vegetables all around them on big plates. Some were roasted, some cooked and some raw. They were at a disadvantage though – they didn´t know which of the many vegetables were actually potatoes. She shrugged mentally – they just had to get some of all, ONE of them would be a potato after all. The blond haired girl jumped and swung from one support beam to another and with time, her bags were full of vegetables. She always waited until no one was looking so she could snatch some away.

After what were roughly 15 minutes she was sure she had at least two of every vegetable that was there. Now – how to rescue the others? She looked around to search the dragons, which she knew would be used as simple livestock later on.

She swore under her breath – they weren´t in the hall. While collecting the vegetables, she overheard the Hysterics and knew they decided to throw her (temporary) comrades alive into the giant pot in the middle of the hall. There were still some men chopping wood for the fire beneath the pot and some sliced various types of vegetables before throwing them into the already slightly boiling water. She didn´t have much time left.

 

 

Camicazi snickered quietly after knocking out the guard in front of the stales. One guard? ONE guard? How dumb _were_ they? It took only a hard enough hit with the side of her hand at the neck of that guy to knock him out, then she was in.   
“Wow, how many are those?” she whispered after entering the stables. There were too many cages lined up next each other in two long rows, each with a little amount of dragons in them. She felt a knot form in her guts – they put mixed breeds in the cages, which made it worse for the dragons even.   
The dragons of Hics gang were all in one cage and surprisingly calm - Windcutter sat on top of the Gronckle, but fluttered over to Camicazi the moment she saw her human. “I _told_ them you would come, but all they do isss whine for thisss Chalfa.” The golden dragon reported seemingly bored - a hint of orangey-pink (excitement) in her scales, however, told Camicazi that there was something else as well. “What is it?” asked Camicazi puzzled. She was used to be lied at by her dragon, but said turned violet if it lied intentionally, so she was hiding something and wow, okay, that was new. Not that Camicazi minded, everyone has some secrets, and she knew Windcutter wouldn´t withhold important information from her, but it was still unusual.

The little dragon changed to a pale green (nervousness) before it turned pink – embarrassment, Camicazi assumed. “Well… I want to meet thisss Chalfa… it´sss jusst that the dragonsss love chim, isss all.” Camicazi was sure there was more, but there were more pressing matters right now. “Okaaay… can you tell the dragons that when I open the cages, they have to be quiet? They can rampage in the hall, but we can´t alarm the guards before they are all free.” The dragon nodded determined and send out a loud humming noise that was probably hearable for all the dragons in the cages. Some hummed back and Camicazi would have called it a song, if it wouldn´t be so short. But either way, it worked, the dragons grew more and more silent with each passing moment. >> _Hic was right <<_, thought Camicazi, >> _dragons really never cease to amaze <<_

Camicazi didn´t work long with dragons yet, aside from her own, and thus it amazed her even more that the dragons actually kept quiet the whole time and listened to instructions. She surely wasn´t used to a Nadder not readying its spikes upon coming near a human, or a Monstrous Nightmare not setting itself ablaze.

\---------------------------------------------------------

Toothless knew many words and their meanings when it came to the language the humans spoke, even though he couldn´t utter them himself. And he didn´t understand each word either, but since his human had always talked to Toothless like to any human, he was used to read a meaning in the sounds and words that weren´t just commands. The other dragons improved their skill to understand human language as well, but slower and more troubled than Toothless. He had seen that their humans didn´t speak with them as much as his human did with him. Now that his human grew to be the Halfa, they spoke in Dragonese, which was easier for Toothless, of course. But when his human was just human and it were just them in their cave, he would listen to his human for hours, though he didn´t understand him at all at the beginning. Back then, he just liked the waves of happiness the human had send out because someone listened to him.   
Toothless had to admit at some point, that he not just liked listening to what his human was telling him, he found it soothing just to hear his voice.   
His human always spoke, either with human words or with dragon sounds. He just talked and talked and Toothless liked to listen to him, especially when they were alone, it always meant his human was okay. They weren´t alone now as often as they had been before, but that was okay, he was happy his human spoke with others as well. It made his human happy, so he was happy for him.

But… now…

It was just him and his human in here.

And it was so quiet.

It was too quiet and Toothless craved to hear his humans voice.

He heard troubled breathing, a heartbeat that wouldn´t stay steady and coughs and gurgles.

Toothless was very quiet while he watched over his human. He didn´t want to miss any sound his human might utter at any moment.

 

Toothless understood very well that his human was sick, very sick. And he wondered if his human had ever been this quiet before. His human spoke to him when he was happy, when he was sad and when he just wanted to talk about everything and nothing. He saw his human laugh, but also cry at some points. He saw him trying to hide it and he helped him to hide himself from the world with his wings.   
Even when they just lied somewhere in the grass and didn´t talk, it didn´t feel so deadly quiet, so wrong.

But while Toothless hoped his human would say something, anything, just as a sign that there was still hope and that he was still there, he feared it as well.

Feared he wouldn´t understand him.

_What if his human spoke his last words and Toothless didn´t even know what he was saying?_

His human wasn´t just his _human_ and _the Halfa_. He was his first _friend_.

Before Toothless had known his human, he had spent his days and nights alone. He wasn´t often in the nest, he didn´t want the queen to control him. He didn´t spent time with the other dragons. He didn´t have other dragons of his breed to form a pack as the others had either.   
Back then, he thought he didn´t need company, he was fine on his own.

But when this human started to show up every day and was just there and spent his time with him, he had to admit at some point that he missed the company when it was gone.   
He didn´t like how he felt then.   
It was the odd feeling that even though he was whole and healthy, some part of him was missing.

And Toothless knew, even if he had other human friends and dragon friends now, that odd and horrible feeling wouldn´t leave him anymore if his human left him behind.

Toothless´ usually so bright green eyes dropped at the thought, but never left his humans´ freckled face. His ears flicked upwards however the moment he noticed that his humans´ green eyes were focused on his scaly face as well. Excited, he sat up straighter and leaned forward, his ears strained to catch every sound.

“H-…hey… bu…d…” Toothless purred in response, urging his human to continue talking. Talking was a good sign.

 

 

Astrid huffed a streak of hair out of her face and looked around again. Fishlegs looked like he was near a panic attack, the twins made dumb comments to everything and cackled as if nothing would be wrong, and Snotlout was trying to look fearless, though it was obvious that he was extremely frightened.   
The water in the giant kettle was boiling already and they would be added to it any minute now. The Hysterics shot hungry and excited glances at the cage every few seconds and yes, even Astrid felt dread settle in her stomach.

Additionally, there was still no sign of Camicazi.

Snotlout was dead sure she left them behind already.

“Any regrets?” asked Fishlegs silently. He was suddenly unsettling calm.

“You mean besides coming here?” hissed Snotlout unnerved.

“Yeah, I couldn´t test out the new bore-hole we made.” said Tuffnut.

“It´s a shame.” added his sister with a slow nod.

Astrid huffed. “Mostly that we couldn´t help Hiccup at all. He´s got another or two days of pain until he dies… poor Toothless.”

“I regret I pulled Meatlug and the other dragons into this as well – who knows what will happen to them?” said Fishlegs and looked far off to one of the walls.

That was when said wall crashed inwards and uncountable many dragons swarmed into the hall to wreak havoc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who left kudos for this work, and for the comments! I´m alwways happy and get all giddy when I see the notificcations. Also I wanna say sorry! I actually forgot to upload the last chapters, I thought they were already online and turned to a few minor other projects!  
> Still, I hope you will be able to enjoy the rest of the story and this series.


	19. Grieving

The dragons roared and slammed away people and furniture, others set the whole place on fire. Then there was a strong shove that send the cage to the ground, making its occupants scream and shout. Before it even stilled or the humans knew what was going on, a Gronckle ripped a few bars to shreds, enough for a human to fit through easily.

“Meatlug!” shouted a delighted Fishlegs and flung himself at his dragon. The others crawled out of the cage as well, the ropes were untied easily. Or, well, chewed off. The riders began to search their respective dragons immediately, but couldn´t spot them in the chaos.

“Guys!” that got their attention –and that of many Hysterics- and they saw a waving Camicazi with her golden dragon on her shoulders stand on the remains of the wall. She gesticulated wildly, but eventually it was clear that the riders were supposed to come outside.   
This was, however, easier said than done. The Hysterics didn´t intend to let their food get away just like that. Those that weren´t occupied with dragons or fire practically pounced on the teenagers.

Fishlegs, caught in the moment, stormed forward with an impressive war-cry and simply rammed the attackers to the side. The other teenagers stared at him dumbfounded, simply flabbergasted by the fact that _Fishlegs_ out of all people seemed to have a berserker-streak.

 ** _Fishlegs_**.

“Come one guys! Don´t just stand around – RUN!” he shouted and shook the others out of their mindless staring.

And then they run.

 

His human was quiet again, for what felt like hours, but his stare wouldn´t leave Toothless. His human would stare and stare with half lidded, halfway dull eyes. He would cough and his heart would stutter, but continue to beat.

Toothless saw his human trying to form words, he saw his lips move, but he didn´t make a sound. He couldn´t. Toothless whined desperately, he craved so much to hear his voice again. Eventually his human stopped trying to form words. He pulled his brows together, finally pushing the emptiness from his features. It was exactly two seconds later when Toothless caught waves from his human. They were weak, but there and he purred with happiness. Until now, the waves had just been snippets of pain, no feelings. Now Toothless felt his human send love to him, love he couldn´t express in words anymore. And then sadness and concern. It was a drowning and choking feeling, because his human felt so sorry. He was so sorry for doing this to Toothless, for leaving him and everyone behind, for not seeing what was wrong earlier. And the feeling of knowing. Knowing that Hiccup would die. Feeling death gripping him more and more. Dragging him deeper into the black numb pain, into the coldness, into nothingness. Then Hiccups expression went blank again, the waves stuttered and disappeared.   
Toothless panicked.

There was a heartbeat – but his eyes were unfocused.

He breathed – but there were no waves at all.

 

 

Stoick stared.   
He sat at home, Gobber dragged him there so that he would get at least _some_ sleep. Stoick found himself not being able to sleep when he was in bed. He had just stared at the ceiling. Now that he got up and sat down with a mug of warm yak-milk at the dining table, he stared again. At the empty stool in front of him.

And he wondered.

Wondered, if it would stay empty.

When he closed his eyes, he only saw one of two things and he didn´t know which was more painful.   
Either, he saw his son like he saw him the last time, only that he always stopped breathing and stilled. That he would still on the bed and that dull eyes would stare upwards to the ceiling without really staring. He would see Toothless nudge his human and whine, louder and louder, he would see him try to shake him awake again. He couldn´t keep his eyes closed any longer then.

The other way around was just as horrible. The memories were old – so old. He would see a little boy with freckles all over his round face jump around laughing, even though he was doing so alone. He would see him in his overly large green shirt. He would see him run up to him all scratched up and bruised and stained with grass all over his body. But the boy would grin so brightly and present him a flower with his dirt-caked hands.   
He would see little freckled hands making braids into his beard.   
He would see him sit at the way too high table in the way too big stool on a pile of somethings so he could look over it. The way he would just be high enough to be able to grab the food on the table.  
The way he would sit on the ground and draw while whistling some unknown tune.

Stoick felt tears burn in his closed eyes, then, he would feel them drop into his beard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is cut so short because I didn´t want so many changes in the general mood in one text. Also, I cried when re-reading and cheking for errors and need to calm down now. Anyone need a tissue?


	20. Return of The Vegetable-Hunters

Fishlegs reached his dragon first. He had simply overrun all the Hysterics that had dared to get into his way. Next was Astrid, then the twins and then Snotlout, who had been tackled to the ground at least three times. Astrid swung herself into her saddle. After a little nudge going through Stormfly the dragon took off. The blonde turned around to the grinning thief with her golden dragon just settling on her shoulders. “Let´s get the hell out of here!” yelled Camicazi. She was roughed up, had a few smoking places on her clothes and a little splatter of blood on her cheek. Up in the air, she just rubbed it away however. “Don´t worry, it´s not mine. I punched someone in the face with the handle of my sword, but his nose started bleeding as he tried to tackle me and yeah.” she continued to grin as if she had just won the world.

“Also, guess what I got?” she pulled out some random vegetable of which she had at least four examples. A relieved grin spread on Astrid´s face. “Now let´s hurry, we flew off at the first night, you were out all of the second day and the ride is going to take all of this night.” Camicazi was right, the sun was setting already.

 

 

It was with the third day that things got worse. Hiccup had been hacking out his lungs before, he had shivered and couldn´t grab a thought. But now? Now he was still shivering and coughing, but also sneezing fire, his scales came out and disappeared in random places again and again and to add to it, Gothi had to let Gobber set up a bent plate of stone because Hiccup was, according to Gobber who had seen Meatlug do this before, vomiting fire. He really didn´t want to know what that must feel like.

 

When the teens arrived after their long and exhausting flight, they were nearly shook off by their dragons (Snotlout actually was, commented with lots of swearing from his side). The dragons all but run to where they felt the distress of Toothless, because they knew – where Toothless was, there was their Halfa. They were alarmed even more when they felt the snippets of pain from their Halfa.   
That little female human with the staff, however, wouldn´t let them inside. 


	21. Three out of Four

It was hot, then cold. Then hot again.

There was pain, then crawling numbness.

Trembling and shivering muscles that were out of control.

Where was he?

A burning in his throat and mouth, or where? Hot, too hot, painfully hot.

What was he doing? Was he doing something? He didn´t know.

Fear.

Cold, creeping and clinging fear. He could be raging. He could be hurting loved ones right now without knowing.

Who was he even? What was he?

More pain. Shifting from place to place, piercing everything with thousands of knives.

Then there was worry, choking distress and drowning sadness everywhere. Like a blanket that suffocated him, but he couldn´t push it away.

The blanket thickened, more and more, it was unbearable. Then it doubled, tripled, multiplied.

 

The teens stopped behind their dragons as muffled shouting, mixed with horrible coughing reached them. Groans and whimpers were heard, sneezes and something that sounded like vomiting but not quite.

Camicazi, however, jumped onto the back of the Nightmare, climbed over it with expert moves and pushed her way inside. Behind her, she heard the other teens following her, but she stopped at the sight.

>> _Is this… is this really Hic?_ << she thought horrified. But she was a girl, a proud Bog-Bugglar, so she snapped out of it and walked over to her friend, already fishing some vegetables out of her pockets.

Gothi snatched said vegetables from her hands and inspected them closely. Then threw two of them behind her to get rid of them. “What the-“ the woman, still with two other vegetables in her hand, began to scratch pictures into the ground. Fishlegs came to a stumbling halt next to Camicazi. “She says… I know those, they are not potatoes, show me the others.” Hesitantly, the girl reached into her pockets and showed the rest of the vegetables to the woman. Gothi was quick to throw some away as soon as she recognized them, after all, she didn´t know what a potato looked like, so she kept the ones she didn´t recognize.

When she had 4 different vegetables in her wrinkly hands, she got a knife from one of the tables and cut off a piece of each of them. Then, after handing Fishlegs the rests, turned to Hiccup. He had calmed strongly at some point, even the scales didn´t come out, or fire. If it wasn´t for his troubled breathing – and the stumbling and weak heartbeat Toothless could hear- you could think he would sleep or… well.

After getting down the first piece of vegetable along with some water, nothing changed, except there were now some chocking noises. They had to hurry – the healing vegetable was of no use if Hiccup couldn´t swallow it. Gothi forced the second piece down, this time with more water. Nothing really changed, but another problem occurred. Hiccup closed his mouth shut. He didn´t know what was going on, but he noticed that when the stuff was forced down his aching throat, it hurt and burnt.

They had to force his mouth open, which resulted in Gothi cutting herself on his teeth, but they still got the third piece down. After a few seconds, when they already prepared to try the last one, Hiccups breath hitched – and stopped.


	22. Resolution

Toothless stared at the closed eyes of his stilled human in horror. He whined loudly and nudged his humans arm; Toothless still heard the heart beating in his chest, he couldn´t be dead.

Hiccup let out a steady and deep breath – steadier than anything he let out the last two days. He continued to lie still, but now calm and with regular breathing. Toothless, however, couldn´t feel relief yet. His eyes were still closed. There were still no waves he could read.

He nudged his human more urgently as the humans around them watched with bated breath. Did it work?

The weak heartbeat grew stronger and stayed this way, no stuttering, no pauses. Toothless purred at that and waggled his tail as he nudged the freckled chin with his snout, which made the head bounce. Only when he placed a heavy paw on his humans belly in his eagerness, shot said human up and banged his head on Toothless` with a groan. Hiccup held his head and squinted at whatever he banged his head on. When he saw the familiar scaly face, he drew his brows together. “Wha- Toothless? What the-“ he was interrupted by Toothless pouncing on him and licking all over his face and upper chest.

Camicazi and the gang couldn´t contain their grins as Hiccup complained and tried to stop his dragon from coating him in saliva. When he accomplished it, however, and sat up, he was thrown down again by a group hug of Fishlegs, Astrid and Camicazi. Snotlout was busy hiding his happiness and the twins banged their heads together in celebration.   
It wasn´t like Hiccup couldn´t lift them all off him to sit up and intake the scene, he was just too surprised at the moment. “What the- _Camicazi_?” he asked muffled before the three let him sit up. “The one and only!” answered the girl and threw her hands up. Astrid punched her lightly. Both were wet with dragon saliva now. “We became friends when we took off to little adventure to get vegetables.” Explained Astrid, but it only puzzled Hiccup more.

They all sat in Gothi´s little hut and the gang explained what had been going on and told Hiccup all the news he missed, when Stoick barged into the room. He didn´t even wait to look at the surroundings before making a few large steps to his son and lift him in a hearty, bone-crushing hug. Gobber just used the opportunity and the moment Hiccup was set down by his father, Gobber swept Hiccup into another, shorter but just as hearty hug.


	23. The End...?

It took two days for things to normalize again… or well, as normal as it could be with people of two more tribes on the little island of Berk.   
Hiccup and Camicazi were strolling through the village, they had so much to catch up on, despite their regular letters. Camicazi was still amazed from the, as she mentally dubbed it, “new” Hiccup, especially since she saw his dragon form in all its glory. Since she didn´t get the chance to fly on the back of a dragon just for fun, he let her ride on Toothless for a long ride around Berk, while he himself flew with his own wings. Toothless nearly couldn´t have been more delighted that he could fly with his human next to him again.

“Say… you haven´t introduced me to Windcutter yet?” Hiccup asked, as the golden ornaments on some visitors cloth reminded him of the dragon he only read about in letters so far. Camicazi pulled her brows up. “You´re right, she´s been hiding all the time.”

It didn´t take them long to find the dragon; though, the usually chatty dragon kept its mouth shut. And a rosy hue colored its scales since the dragon set its eyes on the Halfa. Much to the confusion of Camicazi.   
Little did the girl know that her dragon was ashamed of being in the presence of a leader when she was still a misfit. Of course Windcutter was usually proud that she could speak Norse, something the other dragons couldn´t do. But now, she felt insecure because of it. There weren´t few dragons she met so far that disliked her for that differing treat, but the rejection she received still hurt. What if the Halfa disliked her as well when he noticed she was different?

Hiccup tried to take in every detail of the golden, slightly pinkish, dragon. It was long and thin, like a snake, which was unlike the dragons he had seen so far. When he saw the dragon change its color to a darker pink, he grew even more excited. The dragon gave off uneasy waves, however. Not discomfort, but… nervousness?   
He let his eyes change and the scales out, this appearance usually calmed unfamiliar dragons. Not so this time. The little dragon eyes went wide and the pink changed to a pale green, as the nervousness increased. It practically seeped out of the still silent dragon.

Hiccup cocked his head to the side. “Something wrong? Oh – I´m not scaring you, am I?” hesitantly, he backed off a bit. “N-no! That´ssss not it!” Windcutter blurted out – she didn´t want to hurt the Halfa!

A grin – _woah those are some pointy teeth_ thought Camicazi- stretched the scaly face. “So you really can speak Norse!” excitement dilated his pupils. “Y-yesss…”

“That´s _amazing_ – I haven´t met any dragon that could do that until now.” He inspected the flexible lips, something the other dragons didn´t possess, slightly skeptically. “But can you speak dragon-language as well?”

“Yessss I ssspeak Dragonessse very well.” The dragon turned an orangey-pink at this, now sending out excitement. Hiccup pulled his brows up, his grin still there. “Impressive.” He admitted, because really, it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. It´s done! DONE! FREDDOM! AS IF!
> 
> Now, I would REALLY appreciate it if you left a comment on what you think!
> 
> Thank you for reading the second part of the story and for all the encouragement. 
> 
> (Now following an information for the third story, which you don´t have to necessarily read if you say you want to read the continuation no matter what comes - ALSO SPOILERS LATER ON!!!!)
> 
> Now, for the third and last part of the main story, I am going to re-write the second movie. Bam. Bomb dropped. With Hiccup being the Halfa there will of course be minor plot changes - but also big ones. Really big ones.   
> Now here´s the thing: one of those changes will be one of the biggest plot-elements in the movie. And I don´t want to let anyone read it and then be disappointed because I changed these parts. Attention! These ARE two major spoilers, so don´t continue reading if you don´t want to know beforehand. First: there will be no Alpha-Toothless. I thought about this for a long, long while, but while I´m playing with the thought of letting Toothless evolve later, he will not in this story. The plot will not lead there anymore. Second, and possibly much bigger change: Stoick won´t die. For plot-reasons I can´t reveal yet.  
> I will understand if you say that this is too big of a change. I am completely aware that for some people the whole story might be scratched too hard, or not HTTYD anymore. I will also understand if some say they don´t like this decision or outright hate it - that is their personal opinion and I am just a fiction-author. Fan-fiction. It doesn´t go along with the plot most of the time, that´s the very concpt of it. But I made up my mind, I thought about this for a while and discussed it with others (that will probably never read it bc they suck at english but know what´s gonna happen) and collected many opinions and perspectives. Please respect that. Thank you.


End file.
